LB 
775 


uife   and   remains 
of   the   iiev.    R.    H. 


'■^iuick. 


Southern  Branch 
of  the 

University  of  California 

Los  Angeles 

Form  L   I 

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7VF, 


FIB   i  mr, 

AUG  ^  3  m^i 


LIFE  AND  REMAINS 


Rev.   R.    H.   QUICK 


•The?><y;%. 


LIFE    AND    REMAINS 


OF  THE 


Rev.  R.   H.  QUICK 


EDITED  BY 

F.    STORR 


^'0  04  2, 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1899 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1899, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANV. 


■Nortoooti  ^prcaa 

J.  S.  CusliiiiK  &  Co.  —  Hcrwiek  It  Smith 
Nurwoud  Mass.  U.  S.  A' 


STATE  NORMAL  SCaOOL, 

us 

g:>  4- 
PREFACE 


Some  apology  is  needed  for  the  late  appearance  of  these 
Memoirs.  I  have  almost  reached  the  period  of  incubation 
prescribed  by  Horace  for  a  poem,  and  I  cannot,  as  Dr  Parkin 
does  in  his  Life  of  Edward  Thrhig,  "  wrap  myself  in  my 
virtue  "  and  plead  imperative  and  Imperial  duties  as  a  justifi- 
cation for  the  delay.  The  only  excuse  I  can  offer  is  that  the 
routine  labours  of  a  schoolmaster  and  journalist  (in  a  humble 
way)  have  left  me  scant  leisure,  so  that  the  work  has  had  to 
be  done  mainly  in  my  summer  holidays. 

Nor  was  the  task  of  selection  and  arrangement  a  light  or 
easy  one.  The  materials  from  which  I  have  drawn  consist 
of  forty  Notebooks  of  various  dimensions,  a  life-record  ex- 
tending over  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  These,  if 
printed  /;/  extenso,  would  make,  on  a  rough  estimate,  ten  or 
eleven  volumes  of  the  same  size  as  this  one.  The  com- 
pression has  been  effected  by  rigorously  excluding  everything 
that  was  not  either  of  professional  interest  to  the  teacher  or 
illustrative  of  the  writer's  mind  and  character.  Thus  I  have 
sacrificed  much  bearing  on  politics,  on  general  literature,  on 
bibliography,  and  even  in  the  matter  of  pedagogics  I  have 
chosen  to  err  rather  by  defect  than  excess.^  The  Notebooks 
are  at  once  a  Diary  and  an  Adversaria,  a  votive  tablet  that 
displays  the  whole  life  of  the  man,  and  to  me  as  I  read  there 
was  hardly  a  dull  page  in  the  forty  volumes ;  but  I  am  warned 
by  recent  biographies  that  the  general  reader  would  rather 
have  too  little  than  too  much. 

To  the  position  that  Quick  held  and  still  holds  both  as  a 
striking  personality  and  as  an   educational  expert,  two  testi- 

^  Thus,  in  the  Index  to  the  NoteJiooks  prepared  by  Quick,  I  lind 
under  "Teacher"  sixty-three  distinct  references  and  tifty-eight  under 
"  Latin." 


vi  Preface 

monies  have  reached  me  while  these  Memoirs  were  passing 
through  the  press.  The  first  is  a  letter  of  Thring,  printed 
in  Dr  Parkin's  Life,  in  answer  to  a  letter  gratefully  acknow- 
ledging the  dedication  to  Quick  of  the  Theory  and  Practice 
of  Teaching. 

"I  am  very  glad  that  the  dedication  has  pleased  you.  You 
richly  deserve  any  pleasure  it  may  give  you,  for  two  good 
reasons.  You  are  the  only  man  I  have  met  with  who  has  not 
been  a  mere  partisan  in  education,  who  has  not  looked  at  it 
through  professional  spectacles  of  more  or  less  self-interest, 
and  been  a  modernist,  because  that  was  his  line,  or  a  classicist, 
because  that  was  his  line  ;  but  has  quietly  looked  and  thought 
about  what  is  bcstr 

The  second  is  the  proposal  for  a  "  Quick  Memorial  Fund," 
to  which  many  leaders  of  the  profession,  both  in  England  and 
America,  have  already  subscribed.  On  her  husband's  death 
Mrs  Quick  presented  to  the  Teachers'  Guild  some  thousand 
volumes  on  educational  subjects,  and  also  placed  on  loan  in 
its  library  his  valuable  collection  of  old  books  and  tracts  on 
pedagogy.  With  the  interest  of  the  fund  thus  raised  it  is 
proposed  to  make  yearly  additions  to  this  nucleus  and  so 
establish  a  Quick  Memorial  Library  as  a  recognition  of  "  the 
splendid  services  which  he  so  persistently  and  so  modestly 
rendered  to  education." 

It  only  remains  for  me  to  thank  first  and  foremost  Mrs 
Quick  for  the  trust  she  has  reposed  in  me,  her  valuable  help 
in  revising  the  proofs,  and  her  forbearance  with  my  dilatori- 
ness ;  the  Syndics  of  the  University  Press  for  reading  the 
Memorials  in  MS.  and  suggesting  not  a  few  judicious  omis- 
sions ;  and  last,  but  not  least,  my  wife  for  aiding  me  in  the 
selection  and  for  making  the  full  Index. 

F.  S. 

ATIIEN/ICUM  Cluu, 

II  March,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Life i 


Elementary  Education 127 

Public  Schools 138 

Boys  and  Masters 210 

Examination 216 

School  Wrinkles 228 


What  to  teach 


247 


Child  Nature 297 

DoR,v  AND  Oliver 303 

Training  ok  Teachers 349 

Language 388 

Memory 398 

Adversaria  Mokalia 406 

Varlv 445 

Varlv  Literaria 449 

Preaching  and  Lecturing 472 

Religious  Beliefs 498 

Varia 505 

Criticisms  of  Books 524 

Portrait Tojace  Title 

vii 


MEMOIRS    OF    R.    H.    QUICK 

Robert  Hebert  Quick,  the  eldest  son  of  James  Carthew 
Quick,  was  born  in  London  on  Sept.  20,  1S31.  Though  neither 
of  his  parents  was  known  beyond  a  narrow  circle  of  friends 
and  relations,  they  were  both  remarkable  for  independence  of 
character  and  originality.  His  father  was  a  City  merchant, 
much  respected  for  his  sound  judgment  and  strict  probity,  who 
realised  in  business  a  considerable  fortune.  Though  frugal  in 
his  personal  expenditure  he  was  generous  in  his  charities  and 
most  liberal  to  his  children.  The  knowledge  that  he  had  not 
wholly  to  depend  on  his  own  exertions  for  a  livelihood  en- 
couraged in  the  son  that  roving  disposition,  that  constitutional 
craving  for  a  change  of  scene  and  occupations,  which  appeared 
to  his  friends  a  strange  idiosyncrasy  in  one  so  constant  in  his 
affections  and  apparently  demanding  so  little  from  hfe.  His 
father,  we  are  told  by  competent  judges,  had  a  natural  gift  for 
literary  composition,  though  the  press  of  business  left  him 
little  leisure  for  its  cultivation.  An  old  friend  of  the  family, 
Miss  Bayford  Harrison,  writes,  "  I  have  read  hymns  and  short 
poems  of  his  well  worthy  a  place  in  literature,  and  no  man 
could  write  a  more  terse  and  vigorous  letter.  His  mother, 
too,  was  a  remarkable  woman,  a  lover  of  children,  and  in  the 
infant  school  at  Ingatestone,  which  she  maintained  and  super- 
intended, an  unconscious  Froebelian.  From  his  father  Hebert 
inherited  the  literary  faculty  which  was  turned  into  the  literary 
channel  prepared,  as  it  were,  by  his  mother." 

B  I 


2  R.  H.   Quick 

Hebert  was  nearly  forty  years  old  when  he  began  to  put 
on  paper  any  recollections  of  his  childhood,  but  the  vision  is 
still  clear  and  distinct.  We  see  a  highly  imaginative  child, 
living  in  a  dreamland  of  his  own,  caring  little  for  games, 
making  no  friendships  with  his  schoolfellows,  whom  he  hardly 
saw  out  of  school,  and  absorbed  in  the  dreamland  of  fancy 
and  the  fairy  world  of  story-books.  He  moralises  on  "  the 
permanence  of  these  early  impressions  which  should  surely 
make  one  very  careful  as  to  their  nature."  "The  other  day," 
he  notes  (May  1870),"!  came  on  the  old  Oxford  Drawing 
Book  which  I  had  not  seen  since  I  was  a  small  boy.  Some  of 
the  pictures  were  much  more  familiar  to  me  when  I  opened  the 
book  than  those  of  the  last  Illustrated  which  I  had  seen  the 
day  before.  The  effect  of  the  Italian  engravings  of  the  old 
Goethe  remained  with  Wolfgang  all  his  life."  Once  and  again 
hi  his  diaries  he  laments  the  loss  of  this  childish  power  of  make- 
believe,  and  complains  with  Wordsworth  that  he  *  cannot  see  the 
sights  that  once  he  saw.' 

"  I  remember  the  time  when  anything  that  broke  the  spell 
of  the  enchantment  [in  a  novel]  was  an  annoyance.  I  resented 
Sir  W.  Scott's  speaking  in  the  Antiquary  of  Shavings  the  car- 
penter, because  the  name  reminded  me  that  the  whole  thing 
was  a  fiction." 

To  childish  impressions  too  he  traces  the  germs  of  his 
marked  love  of  architecture  which  were  developed  by  foreign 
travel  and  visits  to  the  great  cathedrals  of  France,  Germany 
and  the  Netherlands. 

"  Yesterday  I  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Tercentenary  General 
Committee  at  the  Westminster  Hotel,  and  getting  to  Westminster 
early  I  strolled  into  the  Abbey.  In  an  instant  I  was  carried 
back  some  five-and-twenty  years  and  the  building  was  the  one 
I  used  to  visit,  or  I  should  say  rather  I  was  again  the  boy  who 
five-and-twenty  years  ago  visited  it.  These  sudden  revelations 
of  the  past  seem  to  be  something  distinct  from  ordinary  memory. 
I  had  at  the  moment  forgotten  all  about  the  visits  to  the  Abbey 


Childhood  3 

when  I  used  to  walk  to  it  from  Denmark  Hill.  This  strange 
feeling  brought  back  the  remembrance  ;  but  it  was  quite  distinct 
from  the  remembrance  and  might,  I  think,  have  come  over  me 
if  I  had  forgotten  those  visits.  I  have  been  in  the  Abbey 
occasionally  in  the  interval,  though  not  now  for  a  long  time,  but 
this  feeling  of  the  old  time,  of  my  old  admiration  for  the  South 
transept  window,  of  the  peculiar  earthy  smell  of  the  Abbey  or 
of  its  vault-like  air,  I  don't  know  which,  had  never  before  come 
over  me. 

'  And  then  it  vanished  as  it  came.' 

"  After  a  few  seconds  the  Abbey  became  the  building  of  to- 
day, and  all  these  feelings  are  memories  merely,  just  like  my 
remembrance  of  visits  to  the  Abbey.  The  other  was  a  vision, 
not  a  memory.  One  cannot  talk  much  about  feelings  of  this 
kind,  for  they  seem  to  be  beyond  language.  '  Transcendental ' 
according  to  the  dictionaries  is  that  which  goes  beyond  ex- 
perience, not  beyond  knowledge.  What  I  am  speaking  of  goes 
beyond  speech,  not  beyond  experience." 

Though  overclouded  by  a  serious  illness  which  impaired  a 
naturally  robust  constitution  and  left  him  all  his  life  a  delicate 
though  muscularly  strong  man,  his  childhood  was  a  happy  time 
to  which  as  a  schoolboy  he  looked  back  regretfully.  From  his 
own  experience  he  judged  that  nothing  can  take  the  place  of  a 
home  education,  at  least  when  the  surroundings  are  favourable, 
and  that  a  boarding  school  is  at  best  a  pis-aller.  "  Es  bildet  ein 
Talent  sich  in  der  Stille,"  and  the  full  "  stream  of  the  world," 
he  held,  should  not  come  before  college  days.  Two  things 
only  he  regretted  in  looking  back  to  his  early  instruction.  "  I 
did  not  learn  to  love  or  even  to  say  good  poetry  such  as  Dora 
[his  eldest  child]  is  now  learning  and  learning  to  love,  and  I 
never  had  my  attention  drawn  to  such  things  as  wild  flowers 
and  birds"  (Oct.  '87). 

"  My  own  remembrances  extend  back  a  long  way.  ]\Iy  child- 
hood was  divided  into  two  parts  by  a  long  illness  which  began 
when  I  was  five  years  old.     Before    this  I  was  very  fond  of 


4  R.  H.  Quick 

being  read  to,  and  I  had  a  very  strong  verbal  memory  which 
showed  itself  in  learning  songs  &c.  I  remember  now  ['69] 
some  of  the  words  of  Paul  Pry  which  I  used  to  sing  in  those 
days,  my  mother  playing  the  tune.  There  were  a  great  many 
verses  but  I  knew  them  all.  Of  course  I  did  not  understand 
them  all  and  when  I  did  not  I  made  mistakes.  One  of  these  I 
remember  :  — 

'  They've  got  me  in  the  picture  shops, 
They  have  upon  jny  honour ; 
Pm  next  to  Venus,  which  they  say 
Is  quite  a  libel  on  her.' 

I  took  it  to  be  '  quite  a  label  honour.' " 

"  I  remember  two  moments  of  supreme  delight  in  these  early 
years.  One  was  when  our  house  was  flooded.  The  other  was  on 
one  of  my  birthdays  when  on  going  in  to  dessert  I  found  a  toy 
bridge  constructed  on  the  dining-room  table,  on  which  bridge 
there  were  actually  tin  vehicles.  There  was  an  eclipse  of  the 
sun  and  I  remember  people  using  burnt  glasses  to  look  at  it. 
I  have  an  impression  that  it  happened  on  a  Sunday.  At  the 
time  of  the  eclipse  I  was  going  every  day  to  Miss  Gutty's  school, 
or  I  had  perhaps  become  a  weekly  boarder.  I  remember  on 
one  occasion  seeing  my  face  (I  can  still  recall  the  impression) 
on  the  brass  handle  of  her  front  door.  I  must  have  seen  it 
every  day  in  the  looking-glass.  Why  should  only  this  sensation 
have  left  a  permanent  impress?  At  Miss  Gutty's  I  cried 
considerably  at  first,  and  the  feeling  of  grief  must  have  been 
strong  to  be  remembered  now.  Of  the  lessons  there  I  remember 
nothing.  Some  of  the  boys  told  me  I  was  very  wicked ;  I  did 
not  bow  when  I  pronounced  our  Lord's  name  in  the  Creed. 
Ignorance,  however,  not  Protestantism,  was  the  cause. 

"  At  this  time  I  was  very  fond  of  music  and  the  evening 
hymn  which  we  sung  every  evening  made  a  great  impression  on 
me.     We  sang  the  perverted  Tallis,  and  such  is  the  force  of 


CJiildJwod  5 

association  that  the  tune  which  pleased  me  then  pleases  me  now 
far  better  than  the  more  correct  version.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  children  never  think  of  the  sense  of  what  they  say.  I  was 
very  much  impressed  by  Ken's  words  and  used  to  wonder  what 
'ills'  were.  I  shall  never  forget  the  effect  of  this  hymn  (words 
and  tune)  upon  me.  I  certainly  used  it  with  a  sort  of  religious 
aspiration. 

"  At  this  school  we  used  to  have  as  punishments  the  stocks 
and  the  backboard.  The  first  was  a  machine  for  making  you 
stand  with  your  toes  turned  out  (why  sliould  that  be  considered 
a  grace?).  The  other  was  a  board  with  handles  round  which 
you  had  to  put  your  arms. 

"  When  I  was  just  five  I  had  measles,  I  was  wrapped  up  in  a 
blanket  and  carried  home.  Here  I  was  ill  in  bed  for  a  long 
time.  Pickwick  was  coming  out  in  those  days  and  I  remember 
the  talk  about  it,  especially  the  fat  boy  and  the  young  lady 
with  fiir  round  her  boots.  After  my  illness  my  memory  was  not 
so  good.  Of  all  that  was  read  to  me  before  my  illness  I  have 
few  distinct  ideas,  ^sop  interested  me  very  much,  and  it  must 
have  been  before  my  illness  that  I  heard  a  most  delightful  book 
read  about  a  great  king  with  a  great  army  trying  to  conquer  a 
small  country  and  being  beaten.  Many  years  afterwards  I 
recognised  this  old  delightful  story  in  the  history  of  the  Persian 
Invasion.  I  had  not  learnt  a  single  proper  name  when  I  first 
heard  the  story,  but  it  had  charmed  me  more  than  any  other 
book  read  to  me.  Here  is  a  proof  that  children  do  not  care 
to  hear  about  children,  or  at  least  of  the  converse  of  the  pro- 
position. But  how  at  that  age  could  I  have  got  any  notion  of 
an  army  and  of  an  invasion  and  fighting?  This  is  rather 
perplexing.  I  stayed  in  St  James's  Barracks  with  Sergeant  Cole 
when  I  was  very  young,  perhaps  before  I  heard  this  story. 
PVom  my  interest  in  this  story  and  also  from  the  delight  with 
which  I  read  about  the  young  Spartans  in  Pinnock's  Goldsmith 
some  years  later,  when  I  was  about  ten,  I  have  always  had  a 
notion   that   history    properly  taught  would   interest   children 


6  R.  H.  Quick 

exceedingly  and  would  give  the  most  healthy  exercise  to  their 
imaginations.  Why  should  severe  discipline  have  an  attraction 
for  the  young?  The  hard  life  of  the  young  Spartans  quite  filled 
me  with  enthusiasm  and  I  remember  petty  pieces  of  self- 
discipline  I  attempted  in  imitation  of  them.  One  desire  which 
children  have,  the  desire  of  being  useful,  was  ingeniously  turned 
to  account  to  keep  me  amused  during  my  illness.  I  was 
persuaded  that  I  was  doing  a  very  useful  thing  in  separating 
peas  and  other  berries  from  cofifee  that  was  brought  me  and  I 
worked  away  like  a  Trojan. 

"  I  was  put  to  Miss  Burrows  before  I  was  eight  and  I  must 
have  been  able  to  read  well,  as  when  I  had  just  turned  eight  I 
began  Latin  Grammar.  Previously  I  had  been  taught  something 
about  the  parts  of  speech  in  Enghsh.  I  was  immensely  delighted 
at  beginning  Latin  and  I  kept  up,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  a 
sort  of  liking  for  it.  But  my  favourite  book  at  Miss  Burrows' 
was  the  Guide  to  Knowledge,  which  threw  light  on  a  vast  variety 
of  things  in  daily  life.  I'm  sorry  to  say  all  the  light  has  faded 
again,  except  that  I  remember  the  diseases  to  which  wheat  is 
subject  —  blight,  mildew  and  smut  —  and  also  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  danced  a  pair  of  silk  stockings,  then  a  rarity,  into 
holes.  A  good  deal  has  been  said  against  the  futility  of  this 
miscellaneous  knowledge,  but  I  found  the  information  I  got 
out  of  the  Guide  gave  me  an  interest  in  all  sorts  of  things  — 
vermicelli,  macaroni,  silk  stockings,  smut  iSic. — which  interest 
died  out  as  this  branch  of  study  was  not  pursued  in  other 
schools. 

"  I  forgot  to  mention  that  when  I  was  four,  or  less,  I  went  to 
stay  in  the  City,  in  Cannon  Street,  and  remember  hearing  the 
old  watchman  crying  out  the  hours  at  night.  During  this  visit 
Jane  Thomas  [an  old  friend  of  the  family]  was  delighted  at 
getting  me  to  count  up  to  20.  I  should  have  said,  too,  some- 
thing of  my  remembrance  of  Church  services.  I  stood  up  on 
the  seat  for  the  hymn,  which  was  good  fun,  but  the  sermon 
was  a  fearful  thing  to  which  one  had  to  resign  oneself,  in  the 


ScJiool  and  College  •  7 

hope,  rather  than  the  l^elief,  that  it  would  sometime,  in  the 
remote  future,  come  to  an  end." 

Of  the  decade  between  leaving  the  preparatory  school  and 
taking  his  degree  at  Cambridge  there  is  hardly  a  trace  in  the 
Note  Books,  and  my  attempts  to  fill  the  gap  by  recollections 
supplied  by  relations  and  surviving  contemporaries  have  been 
singularly  barren.  I  can  give  little  more  than  a  few  leading 
dates  extracted  from  School  and  University  calendars. 

He  attended  for  a  short  time  a  private  school  at  Weybridge, 
conducted  by  the  late  Dr  Spyers(nowbythe  Rev.  G.E.Cotterill). 
Thence  he  proceeded  to  Harrow  in  October  1846,  but  was 
removed  by  his  parents  at  the  end  of  the  term  on  account  of 
his  health.  Among  the  entries  of  that  term  we  find  the  names 
of  Charles  Stuart  Blayds,  the  C.  S.  Calverley  of  Fly  Leaves, 
whose  wayward  genius  and  frolic  humour  were  keenly  relished 
by  Quick,  and  Henry  Montagu  Butler,  his  future  chief  and  life- 
long friend.  Of  the  private  tutors  through  whose  hands  he 
passed  between  1850  and  1854,  when  he  entered  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge,  nothing  survives  but  the  names,  and  of 
his  undergraduate  days  we  have  only  faint  glimpses  and  a  few 
passing  allusions  in  the  Note  Books.  The  College  intimates 
whose  names  I  can  remember  his  mentioning  to  me  in  con- 
versation have  all  died  or  disappeared  from  ken,  and  in  those 
days  he  was  not  a  man  of  many  friends.  His  was  a  clear  case 
of  arrested  development.  After  a  precocious  childhood  he 
seems  for  years  to  have  lain  dormant,  slowly  recuperating  the 
powers  that  had  been  atrophied  by  a  grave  illness.  At  Cam- 
bridge he  ground  away  with  a  stupid  stubborn  conscientiousness 
at  mathematics,  a  subject  for  which  he  had  little  aptitude  and 
less  taste.  Such,  if  I  can  trust  my  memory,  are  the  very  words 
in  which  he  described  to  me  his  undergraduate  studies.  "  Years 
ago  at  Cambridge,"  so  he  writes  in  his  diary  of  1871,  when  he 
was  a  Harrow  master,  "  I  adopted  as  a  rule  Bacon's  maxim, 
that  you  should  attend  to  studies  you  don't  like,  and  what  you 
do  like  will  take  care  of  itself.     This,  at  least  in  my  case,  was  a 


8  •  R.  H.  Quick 

great  mistake.  I  spent  all  my  strength  on  things  I  had  no 
taste  for,  and  the  examination  was  upon  me  before  I  had  found 
time  for  the  subjects  in  which  1  might  have  been  successful. 
I  still  live  under  the  shade  of  some  dreary  piece  of  work  which 
takes  all  the  heart  out  of  me."  For  languages  he  had  a 
decided  turn  and  liking,  and  though  he  never  paid  much 
attention  to  verbal  scholarship  or  philology  in  the  narrower 
sense  of  the  word,  he  had  a  keen  appreciation  of  literary  style, 
relished  Le  Misanthrope  and  Faust  as  keenly  as  he  did  Milton 
and  Shakespeare,  and  wrote  German  with  perfect  ease  and 
correctness.  His  natural  line  would  have  been  classics,  but  he 
must  have  felt  that  having  left  the  regular  groove  of  a  public 
school  education  and  never  attempted  anything  in  composition 
beyond  Ellis's  prose  and  nonsense  verses  he  was  no  longer  in 
the  running  for  the  Classical  Tripos.  Had  he  been  born  an 
age  later  he  would  almost  certainly  have  chosen  the  Historical 
or  the  Moral  Sciences  Tripos,  but  in  his  day  there  were  no  such 
alternatives.  As  it  was,  he  passed  out  as  Senior  Optime  in  the 
Mathematical  Tripos  of  1854.  He  was  not  a  man  either  at 
the  time  to  be  soured  by  his  ill  success,  or,  in  after  years,  when 
he  had  made  his  mark,  to  lay  the  blame  on  the  narrow  cur- 
riculum which  had  afforded  no  scope  for  his  powers,  or  on 
his  tutors  who  had  failed  to  discover  the  bent  of  his  genius. 
The  most  modest  of  men,  he  ascribed  his  failure  wholly  to  his 
own  dulness  and  want  of  initiative.  He  was  always  proud  of 
his  alma  mater  and  especially  proud  of  belonging  to  the 
greatest  College  in  the  world,  and  it  is  to  the  credit  both  of 
Cambridge  and  of  Trinity  College,  that  they  showed  their 
appreciation  of  a  loyal  son,  though  he  was  an  oi/'i/xa^7/s.  After 
leaving  Cambridge  he  went,  as  an  additional  unpaid  curate,  to 
the  Rev.  J.  Llewelyn  Davies  at  St  Mark's,  Whitechapel.  Of 
the  reasons  that  induced  him  to  take  Holy  Orders  the  Note 
Books  tell  us  nothing,  but  from  his  subsequent  reflections  on 
the  work  of  a  minister  and  his  own  (pialifications  and  dis- 
qualifications for  it,  we  may  safely  infer  that,  without  feeling 


Ordination  9 

any  special  call,  such  as  with  men  like  Newman,  Keble  and 
Pusey,  makes  the  ministry  for  them  the  one  and  only  worthy 
pursuit  in  life,  he  chose  the  clerical  profession  as  a  field  for 
useful  labour.  Ambition  was  certainly  not  a  motive.  "  I 
never  knew,"  says  Mr  Llewelyn  Davies,  "a  man  more  un- 
worldly, more  simple,  more  quietly  indifferent  to  money  or 
praise."  And  what  to  most  men  of  ability,  without  the  higher 
call,  would  have  acted  as  a  deterrent  —  the  routine  and  drudgery 
of  parochial  administration  and  all  the  petty  business  that  falls 
to  a  parson's  lot  in  a  poor  parish,  where  he  is  the  only  man 
who  has  both  the  capacity  and  the  leisure  to  undertake  it  — 
was  to  Quick  rather  an  attraction.  He  gave  up  his  curacy, 
not  because  he  found  the  work  irksome,  but  because  it  did  not 
afford  sufficient  scope  for  his  energies.  His  first  Vicar  and 
lifelong  friend,  Mr  Davies,  sums  up  briefly  his  estimate  of 
Quick's  clerical  work.  "  He  had  not  a  telling  manner  as  a 
preacher,  but  his  sermons  were  always  fresh  and  interesting 
and  serious,  and  he  could  preach  extempore  with  more  success 
than  I  should  have  expected.  And  he  had  the  advantage  —  no 
small  one  for  a  clergyman  in  these  days  —  of  being  musical. 
In  parochial  work  his  sympathies  were  always  with  the  poor, 
but  they  were  guarded  by  a  manly  respect  for  the  independence 
of  the  poorest,  and  a  desire  for  their  moral  and  intellectual 
elevation.  I  was  sorry  when  he  gave  up  his  parish  [Sedbergh]  — 
though  he  did  not  altogether  give  up  the  performance  of  clerical 
duty  —  because  I  was  convinced  that  his  spiritual  work,  pure, 
loving  and  deeply  reverent,  had  a  peculiar  excellence  and  value, 
such  as  he  himself  was  not  likely  adequately  to  appreciate." 

A  story  communicated  by  Mr  William  \Velch,  his  friend 
and  colleague  at  Cranleigh,  belongs  properly  to  a  later  year, 
but  it  may  be  appositely  told  here  as  illustrating  the  kind- 
heartedness  (with  a  dash  of  Irish  recklessness)  which  endeared 
him  to  his  East-end  parishioners. 

"  As  a  young  man  he  used  to  put  up  at  Whittaker's  Hotel  in 
Soho,  and  at  the  time  when  he  was  passing  the  first  edition  of 


lo  R.  H.  Quick 

Educational  Reformers  through  the  jiress,  there  was  a  fire  in  the 
building  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  Quick  conducted  his  old 
landlady  to  the  house  of  a  friend  of  his  in  the  neighbourhood, 
whom  he  roused  from  his  slumbers,  and  demanded  admission. 
His  friend  was  not  over  well  pleased  at  being  disturbed,  and 
when  Quick  insisted  that  the  housekeeper  should  be  got  up  to 
make  some  tea  for  Mrs  Whittaker,  warmly  protested.  '  Non- 
sense,' said  Quick,  '  of  course  I  shall  tip  her ;  but  by  the  bye 
I  hav'n't  my  purse  with  me.  Lend  me  half-a-crown,'  He  was 
referred  to  a  pair  of  trousers  hanging  over  a  chair,  abstracted 
the  required  coin,  and  tipped  the  servant  with  her  master's 
money,  which  he  never  remembered  to  repay. 

"  When  I  told  Quick  the  anecdote,  many  years  after,  he 
chuckled  with  delight,  and  said,  '  Well,  if  it's  true  that  I  forgot 
to  repay  him,  I  certainly  won't  do  so  now.  It's  too  good  a 
story  to  spoil.' " 

He  turned  to  teaching,  not,  in  the  first  instance  at  any  rate, 
as  impelled  by  any  conscious  bent  or  bias,  but  rather  as  an 
obvious  alternative,  the  second  string,  so  to  speak,  that  every 
English  cleric  has  to  his  bow.  His  own  bringing  up  at  private 
schools  and  at  Harrow  had  left  him  profoundly  dissatisfied  with 
existing  methods,  and  though  at  that  period  he  had  not  thought 
out  for  himself  any  better  way,  he  knew,  or  thought  he  knew, 
'*  how  not  to  do  it,"  and  felt  assured  that  even  if  he  failed  he 
could  not  well  do  worse  than  his  own  masters  had  done  for  him. 

From  this  point  onward  the  Note  Books  are  so  full  that  we 
may  leave  Quick  to  be  his  own  biographer.  A  preliminary 
table  of  dates  will  help  to  make  the  succeeding  stages  clear. 

Lancaster  Grammar  School,  June  1858 — Jan.  1859. 

Guildford  Grammar  School,  Midsummer  1859 — Midsum- 
mer 1S60. 

Hurstpicrpoint,  Jan. — Aug.  1865. 

Cranleigh,  1865  —  1S67. 

Hurstpicrpoint,  Oct.— Dec.  1S67. 

Educational  Kcforincrs  published,  1868. 


First  Mastership  ii 


Autflbipgrapliy 

"I  was  ordained  Deacon  on  Trinity  Sunday  '55  and  stayed 
at  St  Mark's  till  the  autumn  of  '56.  I  think  it  was  about  Aug. 
'56  that,  stirred  up  chiefly  by  Carlyle,  I  went  for  a  month's 
holiday  to  Hamburg  and  boarded  with  the  Albertinis.  This  gave 
me  a  start  in  the  language,  though  I  did  not  pick  up  enough 
to  read  German  without  constant  dictionary  work,  so  I  suppose 
I  was  not  much  the  wiser  for  my  Hamburg  trip  when  I  went  to 
Leipzig.  On  my  return  from  Hamburg  I  went  to  Christ  Church, 
Marylebone.  I  do  not  know  what  I  did  with  myself  there,  but 
fancy  it  was  not  much.  Healy  and  I  spent  a  great  deal  of  time 
together  and  no  doubt  his  influence  went  far  to  discourage  any 
attempts  at  an  eigcne  Religion,  if  any  of  the  old  Manning  im- 
pressions remained.  I  seemed  to  myself  doing  no  good  there 
and  getting  very  idle.  On  the  whole  I  thought  I  should  do 
better  at  school  work,  so  in  Jan.  '58  I  left  Davies  and  started 
for  Germany  to  do  something  with  the  language  before  I  set  to 
work  in  the  new  line.  In  May  I  returned  to  England  and 
arranged  to  take  a  mastership  in  Lancaster  Grammar  School. 
Here  I  had  six  months  of  tremendously  hard  work,  teaching 
classics  and  mathematics  all  the  week  and  doing  duty  with 
sermons  at  Halton  on  Sundays.  For  some  little  time  I  was 
nearly  knocked  up,  but  I  came  round  and  thoroughly  enjoyed 
the  amount  of  exertion  the  work  required.  Lee  and  I  split 
about  Sunday  work  at  Xmas,  and  in  Jan.  '59  I  went  again  to 
Leipzig.  On  my  return  in  May  I  tried  to  get  a  Grammar 
School  to  myself,  but  ])artly  from  my  dislike  to  fixing  myself 
down  anywhere  and  partly  from  my  dread  of  having  to  do' 
with  work-people,  servants  &c.,  was  not  very  energetic  in  the 
pursuit.  Finally,  rather  than  remain  another  six  months  idle, 
I  accepted  the  mathematical  mastership  at  Guildford  Gram- 
mar School,  which  I   filled  from   the  summer  of  '59   to   the 


12  R.  H.  Quick 

summer  of  '60.  Here  my  work  was  easy  but  intensely  monoto- 
nous and  very  much  against  the  grain,  as  I  am  not  somehow 
good  for  very  much  at  Mathematics.  I  suffered  greatly  from 
headache  while  at  Guildford  and  was  not  sorry  to  leave.  In 
August  I  went  for  a  trip  to  the  Tyrol,  Vienna,  Venetia  &c., 
and  having  returned  in  October  am  now  [Nov.  '60]  thinking 
of  looking  out  for  a  curacy. 

"  What  then  has  been  the  outcome  of  my  school  experiences? 
One  thing  at  least  has  made  itself  clear,  that  such  a  life  as  a 
schoolmaster's  settles  down  almost  irresistibly  into  a  life  of  the 
merest  routine.  This  I  found  to  be  the  case  whether  I  had 
much  to  do  or  little.  After  a  day's  work  there  is  little  energy 
or  inclination  for  anything  but  the  merest  amusements.  More- 
over the  employment  of  school  teaching  keeps  the  mind 
constantly  engaged  with  small  matters,  small  points  of  dis- 
cipline, small  corrections  of  small  faults.  Then,  again,  most 
boys  are  thoughtless  and  stupid  and  exercise  scarcely  any  of 
one's  faculties  except  patience.  It  is  very  difficult  too  to  treat 
them  with  courtesy ;  they  seem  tiresome,  unreasonable  and 
weak,  so  one  imperceptibly  gets  into  the  habit  of  speaking 
curtly,  indeed  rudely,  to  them.  The  master  loses  the  whole- 
some sense  of  his  own  deficiency  by  constant  intercourse  with 
his  inferiors,  and  this  danger  is  the  greater,  as  all  boys  are 
inclined  to  sycophancy.  I  have  often  been  puzzled  whether 
their  rude  flattery  proceeded  from  sheer  simplicity  or  from  an 
early  perception  that  flattery  is  pretty  sure  to  please.  Yet  my 
intercourse  with  boys  has  on  the  whole  raised  them  in  my 
estimation  and  increased  my  liking  for  them.  They  are  by  no 
means  the  bid  fellows  (joethe  tries  to  make  them  out.  There 
is  indeed  a  nasly  spirit  at  times  which  takes  possession  of 
them  and  ])r()nipts  them  to  tease  one  another  and  lie  to  their 
masters.  If  from  some  (-ause  or  other  they  take  a  dislike  either 
to  a  boy  or  master,  the  teasing  spirit,  wonderfully  strengthened 
in  each  by  the  consciousness  that  he  has  numbers  with  him, 
sometimes    becomes    actually   fiendish.       l!ut   so   long   as   this 


Religious   Teaching  1 3 

spirit  lies  dormant  they  are  good-natured,  hearty  fellows,  some- 
what idle,  but  easily  encouraged  to  exertion.  I  know  more 
however  about  the  s])irit  of  teasing  from  recollection  of  my  own 
schoolboy  days  than  from  anything  I  saw  of  it  when  I  was  a 
master.  I-ying  indeed  did  come  under  my  notice,  but  so  also 
did  many  in-stances  of  truthfulness  when  trutli  was  inconvenient 
or  dangerous. 

"  I  went  into  school-work  with  the  notion  that  great  alterations 
might  profitably  be  made  in  the  subjects  usually  taught  and  in 
the  way  of  teaching  them.  I  am  now  fully  convinced  of  this. 
What  for  instance  is  the  present  state  of  religious  education  ? 
It  is  strange  that  while  people  are  very  keen  as  to  the  religious 
education  of  the  poor,  so  that  nothing  can  be  done  because  of 
differences  about  the  'religious  element,'  this  religious  element 
is  hardly  thought  of  in  the  education  of  the  rich,  and  nobody 
knows  or  cares  or  even  thinks  about  it  when  a  son  is  sent  to 
Eton,  Harrow  or  Winchester.  The  religious  element  certainly 
entered  into  the  education  of  the  Fourth  Form  when  I  was  at 
Harrow,  but  how?  In  the  shape  of  one  lesson  a  week  from 
^Vatts's  Scripfiiir  History.  xAnd  maybe  the  fathers  of  some  of 
us  were  then  offering  the  strongest  opposition  to  all  schemes  of 
secular  education  and  believing  most  fumly  that  such  schemes 
end  in  infidelity  and  nil  sorts  of  immorality.  Was  the  weekly 
lesson  in  Watts  the  salt  that  ke])t  all  the  rest  of  our  intellectual 
food  wholesome  for  us?  In  all  the  other  public  schools  I  have 
known  the  religious  teaching  has  been  nearly  as  scant  as  at 
Harrow  in  the  forties.  Even  in  the  National  Schools  where 
there  is  so  much  fiiss  about  it,  all  the  talk  ends  in  the  children 
having  to  learn  by  heart  the  Church  Catechism  and  use  the 
Bible  as  a  reading-book.  In  this  matter  we  differ  verv  widely 
from  the  Germans.  All  their  classes  have  a  religious  lesson 
every  day,  the  younger  children  in  the  German  Bible,  the  elder 
in  Greek  Testament  and  Church  History,  and  in  botli  cases 
great  pains  are  taken  to  give  them  accurate  instruction  in  the 
Gospel  according  to  Martin  Luther.     Yet  the  effect  of  all  this 


14  R.  H.   Quick 

systematic  religious  teaching,  as  far  as  my  observation  goes,  is 
small.  The  educated  classes  in  Germany,  whether  more  or  less 
moral  than  the  corresponding  classes  in  England,  are  for  more 
consciously  estranged  from  Christianity.  With  me  then  it  is  an 
open  question  in  what  way  and  to  what  extent  grown-up  people 
are  bound  to  study  theology  themselves  and  to  procure  in- 
struction in  it  for  their  children.  One  point  is  clear,  that  the 
first  thing  to  cultivate  in  the  young  is  reverence,  and  reverence 
is  surely  in  danger  if  you  take  a  class  in  '  Religion  '  just  as  you 
take  a  class  in  Grammar.  No  good,  I  think,  can  come  of  con- 
necting sacred  truths  and  persons  with  associations  so  disagree- 
able to  a  schoolboy  as  ordinary  school-work.  Above  all  things 
I  object  to  the  plan  of  making  the  Greek  Testament  succeed  or 
supersede  the  Greek  Delectus.  Emerson  says  somewhere  that 
to  the  poet,  the  saint  and  the  philosopher  all  distinction  of 
sacred  and  profane  ceases  to  exist.  All  things  become  sacred 
alike.  As  the  schoolboy,  however,  does  not  as  yet  belong  to 
any  of  these  classes,  if  the  distinction  ceases  to  exist  for  ///;;/ 
all  things  will  become  profane  alike,  and  there  is  great  danger 
of  this  if  the  words  of  our  Lord  are  dwelt  uj)on  chiefly  as 
illustrations  of  the  rules  of  Greek  accidence. 

"  Religious  instruction  may  be  conveyed  in  a  most  impressive 
way  through  the  medium  of  worship.  I  do  not  know  that  our 
daily  service  is  the  best  ])ossible  for  boys,  but  if  any  other  were 
substituted  for  it,  it  should  resemble  it;  in  form  it  should  be  as 
varied  as  possible  and  should  give  the  congregation  much  to 
say  or  sing.  After  all,  religious  education  is  mainly  '  that 
which  is  imbibed  from  the  moral  atmosphere  which  a  chihl 
breathes,  the  natural  language  of  parents  and  tutors,  not  their 
set  speeches  and  set  lectures.' 

"If  the  religious  element  be  a  mere  teaching  of  dogma,  the 
education  as  it  seems  to  me  will  be  just  as  well  without  it. 
Helps  lays  stress  on  prrparing  the-  wav  to  moderation  and  oi)c'n- 
mindcdncss  by  teaching  boys  that  all  good  men  are  not  of  tlic 
same  way  of  thinking.     It  is  indeed  a  miserable  error  to  teach 


Hurstpicrpoinf  15 

a  young  person  that  his  small  ideas  are  the  measure  of  the  uni- 
verse and  that  all  who  do  not  accept  the  formularies  of  the 
creed  to  which  he  belongs  are  less  enlightened  than  himself. 
If  a  young  man  is  so  brought  up,  he  either  carries  intellectual 
blinkers  all  his  life,  or  what  is  far  more  probable,  he  finds  that 
something  he  has  been  taught  is  false,  and  forthwith  begins  to 
doubt  everything.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  a  necessity  with  the 
young  to  believe,  and  it  would  be  impossible,  even  if  we  wished 
it,  to  get  a  youth  to  look  upon  everything  about  which  there  is 
any  variety  of  opinion  as  an  open  question.  But  young  people 
may  be  taught  reverence  and  humility,  they  may  be  taught  to 
reflect  how  infinitely  greater  the  facts  of  the  universe  must  be 
than  our  poor  thoughts  about  them  and  how  inadequate  are 
words  to  express  even  our  imperfect  thoughts.  Then  he  will 
not  flincy  that  all  truth  has  been  taught  him  in  his  formularies, 
he  will  not  suppose  that  he  understands  all  the  truth  which 
these  formularies,  as  far  as  they  are  able,  express." 

Hurst.     29   Oct.  '67 

"  I  came  here  last  week  and  on  Saturday  took  the  first  work, 
which  was  with  the  lowest  form,  as  I  succeed  P. 

"  Having  had  to  take  two  forms  of  over  30  boys  each  in 
Geography  I  am  nearly  rabid.  They  had  learnt  all  the  English 
counties  with  their  county  towns  and  the  rivers  on  which  these 
towns  lie.  Who  is  the  better  for  knowing  that  Launceston  is 
the  county  town  of  Cornwall  ?  A  boy  or  a  man  who  becomes 
connected  with  the  county  finds  it  out  directly ;  but  the  know- 
ledge is  absolutely  useless  and  utterly  uninteresting  to  anyone 
else.  We  cry  up  our  business  and  insist  on  the  importance  of 
education,  and  then  when  boys  are  entrusted  to  us  we  compel 
them  to  cram  lists  of  useless  words  and  call  that  education  ! 

"  As  far  as  I  can  see,  no  one  here  thinks  whether  one 
thing  is  better  worth  knowing  than  another.  The  boys  must 
learn  somethings  no  matter  what  —  e.g.  the  small  print  in 
K.  Edward  Vl's  Latin  Grammar.     I  declare  positively  that  of 


1 6  R.  H.  Qiiick 

all  the  stupid  things  I  know  under  the  sun  there  is  nothing  to 
my  mind  so  inexpressibly  stupid  as  putting  boys  who  are  just 
beginning  Latin  to  learn  these  lists  of  exceptions  &c." 

Surrey   County  School 

Mr  Cubitt  being  impressed  with  the  needs  of  farmers  and 
tradesmen  in  the  way  of  education  determined  to  start  a  school 
for  that  class  in  the  county  for  which  he  was  member.  The 
rector  of  Cranleigh  induced  him  to  fix  it  in  that  parish.  A 
council  of  24  was  formed,  a  subscription  hst  was  opened  and 
about  ^6,000  was  raised  among  the  landowners  of  Surrey. 
Plans  were  prepared  and  approved  for  a  school  building  to 
cost  ;^io,ooo  but  the  deficit  of  ^4,000  was  not  forthcoming, 
and  when  some  two  years  later  Dr  Merriman  was  appointed 
headmaster  he  found  an  incomplete  building  on  a  most  unsuit- 
able site.  Never  did  a  great  school  begin  with  less  promising 
auspices,  and  according  to  the  Diary  it  was  only  the  extra- 
ordinary business  capacity  of  its  first  head  that  prevented  a 
fiasco. 

Quick  describes  the  first  batch  of  pupils  as  frightfully 
ignorant,  though  some  of  them  had  been  at  school  for  years. 
"  Our  best  boy  is  an  ex-Blue-Coat  boy  and  he  is  very  little 
before  the  rest."  The  teaching  at  first  was  necessarily  confined 
almost  entirely  to  English,  reading  aloud,  dictation,  learning  of 
poetry  &c.  For  discipline  a  modified  prefectorial  system  was 
tried,  prefects  having  no  power  of  punishing. 

Hu7'stpierpoint  and  Cranleigh 
"On  Wednesday,  18  Dec.  1867,  I  left  Hurst  and  went  to 
Cranleigh."  This  text  in  the  diary  introduces  a  contrast 
between  the  two  schools  after  the  manner  of  Plutarch's  Parallel 
Lives,  which  is  hardly  of  sufficient  historical  interest  to  be 
preserved.  We  may  however  abstract  from  local  circumstances 
some  valuable  hints  on  the  theory  of  discipline.  To  all  methods 
of  repression  —  absolute  silence  in  the  class-room,  keeping  a 
tight  hand  on  boys,  especially  at  the  close  of  term,  allowing 


All  ideal  Jicadinastcr  17 

no  shouting  in  the  play-ground,  &c. —  Quick  was  a  sworn  foe. 
He  notes  with  a  half-maUcious  satisfaction  that  the  warning  he 
had  received  that  if  you  give  boys  an  inch  they  will  take  an  ell 
was  not  justified  by  the  event.  In  the  dormitory  of  which  he 
was  master  solo-singing  and  choruses  were  allowed  for  the  last 
week  of  term.  In  other  dormitories  where  silence  was  enjoined 
there  was  smashing  of  crockery,  scribbling  on  the  walls,  &c. 
In  his  dormitory  there  was  none. 

Here  is  a  vivid  picture  of  a  "breaking  up"  in  a  school 
where  chartered  freedom  prevailed. 

"  As  for  noise  I  heard  the  uproar  in  the  still  evening  half  a 
mile  off.  All  the  masters  but  one  had  already  left,  but  the 
good  feeling  between  the  boys  and  him  was  so  complete  that 
there  was  not  the  least  danger  of  turbulence  or  wanton  mischief. 
A  splendid  supper  in  hall  was  set  out  for  the  boys.  After 
supper  they  sang  songs  which  were  roared  till  some  of  the 
singers  were  nearly  black  in  the  face.  Then  came  cheers 
for  the  masters,  the  Eleven,  the  football  team,  &c.  The 
boys  were  wild  with  excitement  and  the  Headmaster  was  in 
almost  as  high  spirits  as  they,  yet  when  he  wished  them 
good-night  they  all  went  off  quietly  to  bed  by  themselves  and 
were  all  asleep  in  ten  minutes,  having  let  off  all  their  steam 
below." 

But  for  a  headmaster  to  keep  order  on  these  terms.  Quick 
adds,  he  must  be  a  man  with  a  will  like  iron,  he  must  be  a 
kindly  man  and  he  must  have  good  spirits  —  a  rare  combination 
of  qualifications. 

One  other  general  remark.  Hearty  good  feeling  between 
masters  and  boys  is  essential  for  the  prosperity  of  a  public 
school,  but  hardly  less  important  is  the  homogeneity  or 
solidarity  of  the  staff.  Too  often  it  is  the  case  in  public 
schools  that  "  the  head  forms  one  interest,  the  senior  masters 
a  second,  and  the  junior  masters  a  third."  Too  often  in 
the  smaller  grammar  schools  "  the  thoughts  and  interests  of 
the  masters  are  hardly  more  extended  than  those  of  the  boys, 
c 


1 8  R.  H.  Quick 

and  in  the  dearth  of  other  topics  men  devote  their  leisure  to 
making  elaborate  studies  of  each  others'  defects." 

Self-castigation  :  an  experiment 

"  When  I  was  at  Hurstpierpoint  we  all  used  the  cane.  It 
occurred  to  me  that  we  could  not  well  judge  of  the  amount  of 
pain  we  inflicted  and  I  experimented  on  myself  by  giving  my- 
self a  sharp  '  pandy.'  Of  course  the  experiment  could  not  be 
quite  satisfactory,  for  pain  like  knowledge  must  be  considered  ad 
modum  7'ecipientis,  and  a  cut  that  one  boy  would  laugh  at  might 
cause  anguish  to  another.  But  my  experiment  was  not  a  fruit- 
less one.  I  found  the  pain  I  gave  myself  far  more  than  I 
expected  and  as  I  had  treated  myself  indulgently  I  feared  I  had 
often  given  a  far  more  severe  punishment  than  I  had  intended. 
My  practice  therefore  for  the  future  was  much  modified  by 
this  single  flagellation.  I  wish  we  could  more  often  put  our- 
selves in  the  place  of  our  pupils  and  so  learn  or  suffer  what  we 
require  of  them." 

Assistants  and  Headmasters.     A  squall  and  blue  sky 

"  In  E.  Barbier's  book  La  Discipline  I  come  across  some 
interesting  passages  on  the  relations  between  junior  masters  and 
le  Superieur.  The  French  think  out  and  discuss  in  print  many 
things  which  the  English  leave  to  each  man  to  run  up  against, 
and  form  his  own  notion  of,  after  the  contact.  Of  course  the 
relations  between  superior  and  inferior  are  carefully  regulated 
in  Jesuit  Schools.  With  us  there  is  nothing  but  a  vague  tradition 
to  settle  such  matters. 

"  I  look  back  on  my  own  varied  experience  and  think  that 
young  masters  might  learn  some  useful  lessons  from  old  ones, 
but,  as  far  as  I  can  remember,  they  never  struck  me  when  I 
was  a  young  master  myself.  I  was  not  particularly  bumptious, 
but  the  notion  of  trying  to  l)enefit  by  the  experience  of  my 
seniors  never  came  into  my  head.  In  most  of  our  schools  — 
foundation  or  public  schools,  I  mean  —  the  headmaster  is  both 


Assistants  and  headmasters  19 

in  age  arid  attainments  much  in  advance  of  the  other  masters. 
As  a  rule  they  do  not  think  enough  of  the  school  and  think  too 
much  of  him.  An  assistant  master  sees  this  or  that  defect, 
but  he  probably  considers  it  '  no  business  of  his.'  Perhaps  he 
goes  as  far  as  pointing  it  oiit  to  the  headmaster,  but  if  the 
headmaster  does  not  at  once  see  things  through  his  eyes,  he 
settles  for  the  future  that  the  headmaster  is  responsible,  and 
perhaps  instead  of  doing  what  he  can  to  decrease  the  mischief, 
takes  a  perverse  pleasure  in  watching  it  increase  and  saying  to 
himself,  and  often  to  others  too,  '  I  pointed  this  out  to  the 
head,  but  he  only  snubbed  me.'  The  lower  kind  of  assistant 
master  thinks  of  the  whole  concern  as  the  headmaster's  and 
takes  no  more  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  school  than  the 
ordinary  domestic  servant  in  the  welfare  of  the  family  as  such. 
Just  as  I  fancy  in  the  servants'  hall  the  talk  commonly  turns  on 
master  and  mistress,  so  in  the  common  room  of  public  schools 
the  talk  about  the  headmaster  is  almost  incessant.  We  do 
not  usually  tend  to  general  views.  We  think  of  ourselves,  of 
the  school,  of  the  headmaster,  without  any  reference  to  people 
in  similar  circumstances.  That  which  interests  most  in  the 
headmaster  is  his  '  peculiarities.'  It  is  perhaps  true  generally 
that  for  one  man  or  boy  who  can  discern  a  headmaster's,  or 
indeed  any  man's,  strong  points,  there  will  be  a  hundred  who 
can  spot  his  weak  points  ;  so  the  weak  points  will  be  the  most 
talked  about.  Cordial  co-operation  between  the  head  and  his 
assistants  is  rather  the  exception  than  the  rule.  Men  get  into 
a  habit  of  grumbling.  There  will  probably  be  a  grumbler  or 
two  by  nature  among  the  staff.  The  others  listen  and  are 
amused  :  by  degrees  they  to  some  extent  follow  suit." 

A  petty  incident,  though  it  loomed  big  at  the  time,  is  worth 
recording  in  as  many  lines  as  it  takes  pages  in  the  Diary,  for  it 
illustrates  Quick's  straightforwardness  and  chivalry.  For  a  whole 
term  there  had  been  smothered  dissatisfaction  among  the  staff — 
constant  grumblings  concerning  the  imperfect  domestic  arrange- 
ments for  the  masters'  dinner.     These  at  last  found  vent  in  an 


20  R.  H.  Quick 

acrimonious  letter  written  by  one  of  the  assistants  to  the  Head- 
master. In  the  recriminations  that  followed  Quick  considered 
that  his  own  conduct  was  indirectly  called  in  question  and  at 
once  proceeded  to  '  have  it  out '  with  his  chief.  The  result 
is  best  given  in  the  final  words  of  the  interview  :  '  You've  been 
telling  me  that  H.  is  a  very  good  fellow.  Go  and  tell  him  that 
I'm  a  good  fellow,  and  we  shall  be  friends  again.'  The  dinners 
were  reformed,  and  H.  was  not  dismissed. 

The  moral  that  Quick  draws  is  that  in  cases  of  social  dis- 
agreements or  misunderstandings  it  is  generally  wiser  to  speak 
than  to  write.  The  written  letter  remains  and  rankles,  and 
further,  an  attack  in  writing  always  seems  premeditated  and 
therefore  more  offensive. 

To  sum  up  this  chapter  of  his  life  I  will  give  his  portraiture 
as  drawn  by  one  of  his  Cranleigh  pupils.  It  came  to  me  as  a 
spontaneous  tribute  to  his  memory  contributed  to  the  Journal 
of  Education.  It  appeared  anonymously  but  I  have  the  writer's 
leave  to  add  his  name  —  Mr  John  Russell,  Assistant  Master  in 
University  College  School,  London,  and  sometime  Warden  of 
the  University  College  Settlement  in  Gordon  Square. 

Cranleigh.     By  an  old  Pupil 

'  A  few  days  ago  I  heard  of  my  old  master's  sudden  illness  ; 
to-day  I  have  heard  of  his  death.  Never,  I  think,  in  my  life 
has  any  news  given  me  more  pain.  I  have  so  learned  to  lean 
upon  his  advice,  to  find  strength  in  his  encouragement,  and  to 
look  upon  his  approval  as  the  prize  most  worth  winning,  that 
now  I  am  to  have  neither  any  more,  endeavour,  in  this  first 
shock  of  loss,  seems  vain,  and  hope  a  mockery.  But  to- 
morrow I  shall  remember  how  much  I  already  owe  him,  and 
this  memory,  if  I  was  ever  worthy  of  his  friendship,  will  colour 
my  life  to  the  end. 

'  Among  the  many  friends  of  his  own  age  who  are  sor- 
rowing   for   him,  there  will    be  no  lack  of  voices  to  tell  the 


Cranleieh  2 1 


■^.b 


story  of  his  life,  to  put  his  work  in  its  true  light,  to  make  him 
better  known  now  that  he  is  gone  than  when  he  was  still  with 
us.  Will  it  be  thought  an  impertinence  for  one  who  might 
have  been  his  son,  and  who  indeed  regarded  him  with  all  a 
son's  affection  and  respect,  to  add  a  faint  touch  or  two  to 
the  picture  ? 

'  Our  friendship  —  I  think  he  would  have  called  it  so  —  is  of 
very  long  standing,  dating  back  to  a  time  nearly  twenty-five 
years  ago,  when  he  was  second-master  at  Cranleigh,  and  I  a 
small  schoolboy  of  ten. 

'  It  seems  to  me  now  that  everybody  loved  him  and  valued 
his  good  opinion,  and  that  nobody  would  have  dreamed  of 
deliberately  vexing  him.  What  particular  scraps  of  knowledge 
I  owe  to  his  teaching,  I  cannot  remember ;  I  have  only  the 
memory  of  his  influence,  and  this  makes  me  think  he  must 
have  been  an  ideal  master.  Certainly,  none  other  that  I  ever 
came  under  so  won  my  whole  heart.  To  be  in  Mr  Quick's 
class,  to  be  asked  to  Mr  Quick's  room,  to  be  on  Mr  Quick's 
side  at  football,  made  school-life  worth  hving.  Two  or  three 
times  a-week  there  was  compulsory  (Association)  football  for 
the  whole  school,  and  the  sides  being  generally  *  A  to  K,' 
and  Q  being  luckily  in  my  half  of  the  alphabet,  I  nearly 
always  had  the  good  fortune  to  run  behind  my  favourite.  In 
those  pre-scientific  days,  when  '  off-side  '  was  '  off-side,'  there 
was  no  getting  in  front  of  the  ball,  and  many  and  many  a 
time  have  I  pantingly  backed  up  the  active,  burly  figure  in 
a  good  dribble  from  goal  to  goal,  learning  the  while,  without 
ever  suspecting  it,  to  use  my  limbs,  and  love  pluck  and  skill 
and  fair-play.  More  than  twenty  years  ago,  and  yet  the 
picture  is  scarcely  blurred  :  the  cheery  voice,  the  kind,  eager 
face,  the  long  growth  of  red  beard,  even  the  white  flannels 
and  the  grey  shirt. 

'  The  mention  of  voice  and  beard  calls  up  another  picture, 
cherished  by  others  besides  myself —  Mr  Quick  singing.  He 
sang  as  he  played  football,  as  indeed  he   did  everything  he 


2  2  R.  H.  Qjtick 

thought  worth  doing,  with  heart  and  soul.  He  had  a  pecu- 
Harly  full  and  telling  voice,  and  sang  with  free  emphatic 
movement  of  the  head.  To  watch  him  in  chapel,  leading 
the  Magnificat  to  his  favourite  chant  —  which  I  hum  as  T 
write,  though  I  have  forgotten  its  name  —  mouth  wide,  and 
beard  rising  and  falling  with  the  syllables  on  his  white  sur- 
plice, was  our  delight. 

'  I  think  it  may  have  been  because  I  was  in  the  choir  that 
I  came  in  for  so  large  a  share  of  invitations  to  his  room. 
How  our  hearts  leapt  at  those  invitations  !  What  good  times 
we  had  !  Was  ever  such  jam  and  cake  ?  Was  ever  a  game 
like  puff  and  dart?  Was  ever  a  host  like  ours?  How  he 
must  have  loved  boys  to  win  such  love  in  return  !  How  (I 
expect)  he  labelled  us,  and  ticketed  us,  and  put  us  away  in 
those  wonderful  mental  pigeon-holes  of  his,  respecting  our 
individuality  and  bearing  with  our  liumours,  almost  as  though 
we  had  been  grown  men.  And  we  were  not  put  away  to 
be  forgotten,  for  years  afterwards,  when  I  met  him  again  at 
Cambridge,  he  remembered  me  in  a  moment,  and  only  a  few 
months  ago  in  one  of  his  much-prized  letters  he  addressed 
me  by  my  old  school  nickname,  which  I  myself  had  almost 
forgotten. 

'  My  good  fortune  followed  me  everywhere,  for  I  was  also 
'  in  Mr  Quick's  class,'  though  for  what  subject  or  subjects 
I  have  forgotten.  I  think  it  must  have  been  for  English, 
amongst  other  things,  for  I  distinctly  remember  how  at  times 
he  would  delight  us  by  stopping  work  early  and  reading 
aloud.  My  first  introduction  to  Tom  Brown  at  Oxford  was 
by  hearing  him  thus  read  the  account  of  the  boat-race.  I 
think  he  must  have  read  it  marvellously  well,  for  I  have 
never  forgotten  the  almost  breathless  interest  with  which  I 
listened  for  the  end.  I  remember,  too,  that  he  was  the  ex- 
aminer for  some  reading  prizes  —  given,  I  have  little  doubt,  by 
himself — and  I  do  not  suppose  I  liked  him  any  the  less  for 
awarding  the  junior  prize  as  he  did.     He  was  also  hbrarian, 


Cranlcigh  23 

and  no  doubt  gave  many  a  boy  a  love  for  books,  who,  but 
for  him,  would  have  remained  a  hopeless  Philistine.  I  have 
a  vague  memory  of  class-matches  also,  which  I  think  he  must 
have  introduced,  and  which  left  such  a  lasting  and  satisfactory 
impression  upon  my  mind  that,  as  soon  as  I  began  to  teach,  I 
adopted  the  plan,  and  have  never  since  given  it  up. 

'  I  only  once  remember  to  have  seen  him  angry,  and  that 
was  in  class,  and  with  me.  I  was  sitting  next  to  my  great 
friend  —  my  great  friend  then,  and  ever  since  —  who  would 
ratify  every  word  that  I  have  written.  What  we  were  sup- 
posed to  be  doing  I  don't  know,  but  whatever  it  was  we 
were  neglecting  it,  and  tittering  together  over  some  foolish 
thing  that  one  of  us  had  whispered  or  drawn  upon  his  paper. 
Suddenly  Mr  Quick  noticed  us  and  called  us  to  order.  But 
his  words,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  had  no  other  effect  than  to 
make  us  both  burst  into  one  of  those  unreasonable,  yet  at 
the  same  time  absolutely  uncontrollable,  fits  of  laughter  that 
schoolboys,  and  schoolboys  alone,  are  subject  to.  He  sternly 
bade  us  be  quiet,  but  we  only  laughed  the  more.  Then  he 
rose  from  his  seat  and  came  over  to  us.  I  need  hardly  say 
that  he  did  not  strike  us,  but  of  what  he  did  or  said  I  have 
no  memory.  I  can  only  remember  a  mighty  anger,  and  that 
after  a  few  incoherent  words  of  excuse  we  were  cowed  and 
still.  I  had  hoped  some  day  to  remind  him  of  the  incident, 
and  beg  his  pardon. 

* '  How  long  he  remained  at  Cranleigh  I  do  not  know,  but 
he  must  have  left  while  I  was  still  a  comparatively  small  boy. 
I  well  remember  our  excitement  and  sorrow  on  hearing  that 
we  were  going  to  lose  him.  In  those  days  rod  and  birch 
were  in  full  swing  there  —  they  may  be  still  —  and  a  notion 
got  about  that  Mr  Quick,  to  express  his  disapproval  of  such 
barbarous  means  of  maintaining  discipline,  had  decided  to 
leave.     After   this,    of  course,    he   was   more   our   hero   than 

1  He  came  at  the  opening  of  the  school,  Michaelmas,  1865,  and  left  in 
December,  1867. 


24  ^.  H.  Quick 

ever,  and  we  felt  somehow  that  in  losing  him  we  were  being 
given  over  to  the  enemy.  The  last  time  I  ever  saw  him  I 
told  him  of  this  old  belief  of  ours.  He  smiled,  as  only  he 
could  smile,  and  said  we  were  wrong ;  but  I  did  not  take  his 
smile  to  mean  that  he  was  a  friend  of  birch  and  rod. 

'  It  must  have  been  about  ten  years  after  leaving  Cranleigh 
that  he  gave  a  course  of  lectures  at  Cambridge  on  the  History 
of  Education.  I  was  then  an  undergraduate,  and  though  I 
had  not  seen  or  heard  of  him  for  all  those  years,  and  cared 
no  straw  (being  still  unconverted)  for  any  History  but  Church 
History,  coming  upon  his  name  one  day  by  accident,  its  old 
charm  drew  me  to  his  lecture-room.  Yes,  it  was  the  same 
man,  my  boyish  hero,  and  as  I  sat  and  looked  —  I  don't  think 
I  hstened  —  all  my  old  love  and  worship  came  back,  never 
again  to  be  disturbed.  After  the  lecture  many  stayed  behind 
to  speak  with  him.  I  waited  patiently  till  all  were  gone,  and 
then,  with  flushed  cheeks,  went  up  to  him  and  put  out  my 
hand  and  spoke.  He  not  only  knew  me  at  once,  but  seemed 
as  glad  to  see  me  as  I  was  to  see  him. 

*  From  that  time  we  have  never  lost  touch.  All  my  subse- 
quent life  has  been  stayed  by  his  kindly  hand,  and  cheered 
by  his  kindly  voice,  and  this,  despite  the  fact  that  I  long  ago 
renounced  the  faith  he  always  held  so  dear. 

'  He  is  dead,  my  dear,  dear  Master ;  but  he  remains  my 
dear  Master  still.' 

Educational  Reformers 

The  year  that  elapsed  between  leaving  Cranleigh  and 
joining  the  staff  at  Harrow  was  occupied  almost  entirely  with 
the  writing  of  Essays  on  Educational  Reformers.  When  the 
idea  of  the  book  first  took  definite  shape  we  are  not  informed, 
but  the  germ  was  certainly  ini])lanted  during  Quick's  visits  to 
Germany.  At  Hamburg,  Leipzig  and  elsewhere  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  lending  '  Schoolmen '  and  conversed  for 
the  first  time  with  masters  who  had   made  a  study  of  their 


Educational  Reformers  25 

profession,  and  applied  in  their  scliool  teaching  methoils  that 
they  had  previously  thought  out  for  themselves.  "  I  have 
found,"  he  writes,  "  that  in  the  History  of  Education,  not  only 
good  books,  but  all  books,  are  in  German  or  some  other  foreign 
language."  To  exhort  public  school  masters  to  study  German 
Piulagogik  was,  he  knew,  waste  of  l)reath,  but  he  hoped  to 
induce  the  more  thoughtful  among  them  to  read  short  sketches 
of  the  great  masters  of  Educational  Method  —  Comenius,  Locke, 
Rousseau,  Pestalozzi  —  when  presented  in  clear  outlines  and 
with  special  reference  to  the  present  state  of  secondary  edu- 
cation in  England.  What  gives  the  book  its  great  charm  and 
its  chief  value  as  an  historical  study,  is  its  suggestiveness,  its 
almost  tentative  attitude.  The  author  is  himself  a  student, 
feeling  his  way,  digesting  materials  for  his  own  use.  He  has 
no  cut  and  drietl  theory  to  establish  or  illustrate,  he  judges 
each  school  and  method  by  its  fruits,  he  is  an  eclectic  philo- 
sopher. Educational  Reformers  was  not  so  much  the  result  of 
an  impulse  to  create  something  as  to  do  something.  He 
shrank  from  the  suggestion  of  his  friend  Professor  Seeley  to 
add  a  final  chapter  summing  up  the  proposals  of  the  different 
Reformers.  "That"  (he  notes  with  his  usual  modesty)  "re- 
quired thought,  and,  like  a  schoolboy,  I  shirk  thinking,  though 
unlike  most  schoolboys,  1  am  always  ready  for  work  or  for 
receiving  the  thoughts  of  others." 

He  felt  moreover  that  besides  a  close  and  thorough,  though 
not  very  prolonged,  study  of  original  authorities,  he  was  bringing 
to  his  task  a  qualification  that  few  previous  English  writers 
on  education  had  possessed,  a  practical  acquaintance  with  the 
subject.  "  As  boy  or  master,  I  have  been  connected  with  no 
less  than  eleven  schools,  and  my  perception  of  the  blunders  of 
other  teachers  is  derived  mainly  from  the  remembrance  of  my 
own."  But  as  the  concluding  words  of  the  Preface  show,  he 
was  not  very  confident  of  realising  even  these  modest  ex- 
pectations :  — "If  the  following  i)ages  attract  but  few  readers, 
it  will  be  some  consolation,  though  rather  a  melancholy  one, 


26  R.  H.  Quick 

that  I  share  the  fate  of  my  betters."  The  book  eventually 
brought  him  fame,  and  to  American  pirates  considerable 
profit,  of  which  he  never  shared  a  penny,  but  at  the  time  it 
proved  from  the  publisher's  point  of  view  a  complete  failure. 
It  was  years  before  the  first  edition  of  500  was  sold  off  and 
that  not  till  the  published  price,  7^-.  6^/.,  had  been  reduced  to 
3^.  6d.  After  the  first  English  edition  had  been  exhausted 
there  was  a  steady  demand  for  the  book,  but  not  sufficient  in 
the  opinion  of  his  publishers  to  justify  a  second  edition. 
Quick,  whose  one  thought  was  to  promote  the  study  of  edu- 
cation and  in  particular  to  aid  beginners  who  had  not  either 
the  time  or  the  ability  to  consult  original  authorities  in  Latin, 
French  and  German,  was  perfectly  content  to  supply  this  demand 
by  importing  and  selling  at  cost  price  one  of  the  pirated 
American  editions.  In  this  way  about  1500  copies  were  dis- 
posed of  Between  the  first  and  the  second  authorised  edition 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  intervened.  For  all  these  years, 
off  and  on,  Quick  had,  as  he  expressed  it,  been  "  tinkering  "  at 
his  book,  buying  every  book  and  brochure  that  bore  on  his 
subject  (more  than  he  could  possibly  read),  revising,  annotating 
and  adding  supplementary  chapters.  As  prefaces  are  seldom 
read,  I  venture  to  quote  from  the  Preface  to  the  second 
edition  a  graphic  apologue  in  which  he  reflects  on  the  first 
stage  of  his  pilgrim's  progress  as  viewed  from  his  present 
standpoint. 

"  When  I  was  a  young  man  {i.e.  nearly  forty  years  ago),  I 
once  did  what  those  who  know  the  ground  would  declare  a 
very  risky,  indeed,  a  foolhardy  thing.  I  was  at  the  highest 
point  of  the  Gemmi  Pass  in  Switzerland,  above  the  Rhone 
Valley:  and  being  in  a  hurry  to  get  down  and  overtake  my 
party,  I  ran  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  The  path  in  those 
days  was' not  so  good  as  it  is  now,  and  it  is  so  near  the 
precipice  that  a  few^ears  afterwards  a  lady  in  descending  lost 
her  head  and  fell  over.  No  doubt  I  was  in  great  danger  of 
a  drop  of  a  thousand  feet  or  so.     liut  of  this  I  was  totally 


Educational  Reformers  ij 

unconscious.  I  was  in  a  thick  mist,  and  saw  llic  path  for  a 
few  yards  in  front  of  nie  and  iiothiui:;  more.  When  I  think 
of  the  way  in  which  this  book  was  written  three-and-twenty 
years  ago,  I  can  compare  it  to  nothing  but  my  first  descent 
of  the  Gemmi.  I  ibd  a  very  risky  thing  without  knowing  it. 
My  path  came  into  view  Httle  by  little  as  I  went  on.  All 
else  was  hid  from  me  by  a  thick  mist  of  ignorance.  When 
I  began  the  book  I  knew  next  to  nothing  of  the  Reformers, 
but  I  studied  hard  and  wrote  hard,  and  I  turned  out  the  essays 
within  the  year.  This  feat  I  now  regard  with  amazement, 
almost  with  horror.  Since  that  time  I  have  given  more  years 
of  work  to  the  subject  than  I  had  then  given  months,  and  the 
consei[uence  is  I  find  I  can  write  fast  no  longer.  The  mist  has 
in  a  measure  cleared  off,  and  I  cannot  jog  along  in  comfort  as 
I  did  when  I  saw  less." 

He  had  gratifying  proofs  that  though  he  might  be  no 
prophet  in  his  own  countrv,  his  work  was  fully  appreciated  in 
the  States.  In  the  Boston  Journal  of  Education  of  4  Nov. 
1886,  appeared  a  model  list  of  books  for  teachers.  The  list  had 
been  comi)osed  by  the  Editor  on  the  following  plan.  Twenty- 
three  of  the  leading  American  educationists  were  applied  \o 
and  the  lists  furnished  by  them  collated  by  the  Editor.  In 
the  pul)lished  list  the  books  were  arranged  in  order,  according 
to  the  number  of  times  they  had  been  recommended. 

"  Oddly  (and  absurdly)  my  Educational  Reformers  heads 
the  list  with  17,  Page's  Theory  and  Practice  of  Teaching  comes 
next  with  15,  and  Eitch's  Lectures  next  with  12  votes." 

As  the  first  edition  is  now  a  rare  book  it  will  not  be  deemed 
superfluous  to  indicate  the  principal  alterations  and  additions. 
The  first  two  chapters  of  the  second  edition,  a  study  on  the 
Renaissance  in  its  educational  bearings,  are  entirely  new.  On 
comparing  these  chapters  with  those  which  immediately  follow, 
on  the  Schools  of  the  Jesuits,  the  reader  cannot  fail  to  notice 
the  advance  in  originality,  the  wider  and  bolder  generalisation, 
the   firmer    grasp   and    more   definite    statement   of    leading 


28  R.  H.  Quick 

principles.  The  chapter  on  Froebel,  a  replica  of  his  article 
on  Froebel  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  is  also  entirely 
new.  The  studies  of  Sturm,  Rabelais  and  the  Port-Royal  are 
remodelled  and  greatly  enlarged.  The  concluding  dialogue, 
an  excrescence,  but  one  that  few  could  wish  excised,  charac- 
teristic as  it  is  of  his  attitude  and  temperament,  replaces  a 
somewhat  dry  appendix  which  was  wisely  omitted. 

From  the  latest  appreciation  of  the  book  by  a  Frenchman  ^ 
who  is  thoroughly  versed  in  the  educational  literature  of  Eng- 
land and  Germany  as  well  as  of  his  own  country,  I  translate 
a  short  passage  as  showing  the  high  value  set  on  the  book 
by  Continental  authorities.  '  Our  author  lays  no  claim  to  ori- 
ginality in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word.  With  an  ingenuous 
modesty  which  we  must  discount  he  tells  us  himself  that  many 
of  his  essays  are  mere  .compilations.  There  are  indeed  few 
works  on  education  that  he  has  not  laid  under  contribution, 
and  in  the  Preface  to  the  first  edition  and  the  list  of  '  Books 
for  Teachers '  of  the  second  edition,  he  loyally  acknowledges 
the  sources  from  which  he  has  drawn.  He  resembles  the 
Matinean  bee,  if  we  may  be  allowed  a  hackneyed  comparison. 
He  possesses  in  a  high  degree  the  art  of  seizing  the  dominant 
thought  of  a  writer,  of  assimilating  it  and  reproducing  it  with- 
out commonplaces  or  unnecessary  accessories.  He  has  the 
rare  knack  of  condensing  into  two  or  three  pages  the  pon- 
derous tomes  or  undigested  lucubrations  of  the  authors  whom 
he  quotes.  What  he  borrows  is  so  thoroughly  assimilated  and 
identified  with  his  own  stock  in  trade,  that  he  cannot  keep 
separate  accounts  and  finds  it  impossible  to  determine  who 
should  be  credited  with  an  idea.  Whether  the  thoughts  he 
sets  before  us  are  his  own  or  another's,  the  language  is  all  his 
own,  the  style  clear  and  simple,  set  off  by  happy  illustrations 
and  apposite  quotations.' 

1  I) Histoire   de  PEdiica/ion   en   Aiii^lcfrnr,  jiar   Jacques  rarmcntier, 
Professeur  a  la  Faculte  des  Icttres  dc  Poitiers  (Perrin,   1896). 


Harrow  29 


Hai'row 

III  the  autumn  of  1S69  Quick  was  most  unexpectedly 
offered  a  mastership  at  Harrow. 

Harroiv  revisited  Nov.  ii,  '69 

"  To-day  I  have  been  down  to  Harrow,  where  to  my  infinite 
astonishment  I  have  just  got  a  mastership.  The  whole  thing 
seems  much  more  hke  a  dream  than  a  reality.  I  did  feel 
pleasure,  but  one's  feelings  are  blunted  and  my  sensations  were 
much  less  keen  than  they  were  in  '46.  Though  I  had  not 
been  at  Harrow  since  Fred  [his  younger  brother]  was  at  school 
there  (about  18  years  ago),  I  remember  the  place  and  every- 
thing about  it  as  well  as  any  place  in  which  I  have  spent  years. 
I  went  with  Bowen  to  the  Fourth  Form  room  for  '  bill.'  ^  It 
was  a  much  quieter  affair  than  in  my  time.  The  room  seems 
smaller  —  otherwise  quite  unaltered." 

He  was  delighted  at  the  prospect  of  returning  to  his  old 
school  and  serving  under  his  old  schoolfellow  Dr  Butler,  for 
whose  character  and  abilities  he  had  a  profound  admiration. 
The  change  too  from  the  Spartan  fare  and  the  almost  monastic 
regimen  of  middle-class  schools  like  Hurstpierpoint  and 
Cranleigh,  to  the  comparative  luxury  and  the  social  advantages 
of  Harrow,  was  not  without  its  attractions.  Though  by  pro- 
fession he  was  a  thoroughgoing  radical  in  all  scholastic  matters, 
he  felt  none  the  less  the  immense  educational  advantage  of 
historic  traditions,  fine  buildings  and  such  surroundings  as 
appeal  to  a  boy's  sense  of  beauty  and  veneration.  "  I  don't 
think  (he  writes)  we  should  have  been  as  conscious  as  we  w^ere 
of  the  idea  of  the  school  at  Hurstpierpoint,  had  we  not  had 
the  Chapel  antl  the  Hall.  Certainly  at  Cranleigh  I  missed 
these  things  terribly."  And  after  attending  a  school  concert  in 
the   New  Speech  Room,  "  Yesterday  the   sight  of  the  whole 

iThe  Roll  Call. 


30  R.  H.  Quick 

school  assembled  in  the  Speech  Room  was  to  me  not  only 
intensely  pleasurable,  but  something  more  too  ;  "  though  he 
adds  too  truly,  "  Harrow  Chapel  never  was  of  the  smallest 
material  advantage  to  me.  It  is  weak  and  dwarfing."  To 
Society,  indeed,  in  the  fashionable  sense  of  the  word,  Quick 
was  absolutely  indifferent,  and  the  only  personal  luxury  in 
which  he  indulged  was  books.  Not  that  he  felt  at  any  time  a 
leaning  towards  asceticism,  but  his  mind  was  always  so  absorbed 
by  the  work  in  which  he  was  engaged,  whether  contemplative  or 
active,  that  he  never  had  time  to  think  of  food  and  raiment  and 
minor  creature  comforts.  So  again  in  his  social  relations  he 
was  a  true  democrat.  He  acted  on  no  preconceived  theory  of 
equality  or  fraternity,  but  he  naturally  and  without  an  effort 
made  friends  of  all,  without  distinction  of  rank,  who  were 
drawn  to  him  by  common  pursuits  and  interests.  The  more 
fastidious  of  his  colleagues  were  shocked  and  sometimes 
scandalised  by  the  strange  creatures  who  came  to  visit  him 
at  Ivy  Cottage  —  ushers  out  at  elbow,  Board  Schoolmasters 
weak  in  their  h's,  and  German  Lehrer  unacquainted  with  soap. 
Like  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield's  guests,  to  carry  on  a  comparison 
suggested  by  Dr  Butler,  these  motley  visitors  '  all  sat  at  the 
same  table  and  none  complained  of  the  gooseberry  wine  pro- 
vided by  their  host.'  His  Harrow  life,  as  the  extracts  from 
his  diaries  will  show,  did  not  fulfil  his  expectations.  He  was 
handicapped  in  his  work  by  chronic  headaches  and  as  a 
consequence  subject  to  fits  of  mental  depression.  He  was 
naturally  a  slow  worker,  and  the  incessant  'grind'  which  is 
the  lot  of  most  Harrow  and  I'.ton  masters  was  too  much  for 
him.  He  is  always  complaining  that,  do  what  he  will,  he 
cannot  get  abreast  of  his  work.  A  friendly  though  unsympa- 
thetic colleague  writes  lo  me,  '  1  fear  I  cannot  tell  you  much 
about  our  old  friend  (^)ni(k.  During  such  time  as  I  was  at 
Harrow  with  him  1  always  enjoyed  his  kindly  ways,  but  did 
not  know  him  intimately  like  Hallam  and  Marshall.  I  re- 
member, 1  fear,  most  his  complaints  —  it  was  not  long  before 


Harrow  3 1 

he  left  —  his  headaches  and  (jiiite  startling  difficulties  in  adding 
up  a  few  weeks'  marks,  <.Vc.  and  the  effort  it  gave  him  to  write 
a  short  sermon  at  long  intervals.'  Undoubtedly  too  he  fell 
into  the  error  of  overconscientiousness  and  carried  his  love  of 
strict  accuracy  into  a  province  where  it  is  mostly  labour  lost. 
It  may  not  be  a  doctrine  to  be  preached  on  the  house-tops, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  a  wise  passiveness,  a  knowledge 
when  '  et  premere  et  laxas  dare  habenas '  is  a  valual)le  equip- 
ment for  a  schoolmaster.  Without  this  gift  it  will  happen,  as 
in  Quick's  case,  that  an  idle  boy  who  knocks  off  an  exercise  in 
ten  minutes,  may  inflict  on  his  master  an  imposition  of  twenty 
minutes  in  correcting  it. 

The  constitution  of  a  great  public  school  resembles  in  some 
respects  that  of  a  State  Department  like  the  Treasury  or  the 
War  Office.  It  is  settled  mainly  by  tradition  and  unwritten 
law  ;  the  machinery  is  antiquated,  cumbrous,  intricate,  and  such 
as  no  publicist,  or  statesman  with  a  perfectly  free  hand,  would 
dream  of  adopting  or  recommending  for  adoption.  But  in  spite 
of  much  friction  and  waste  of  time  and  brain  power  it  does  its 
work  in  a  way,  and  a  new  Secretary  of  State,  however  great  his 
ardour  for  reform,  finds  himself  comparatively  powerless  against 
the  traditions  of  the  Office  and  the  conservatism  of  the 
permanent  officials.  Such  a  system  is  not  likely  to  suit  a 
philosopher  who  is  always  examining  into  the  reasons  of  things 
and  trying  to  construct  for  himself  an  ideal  workl.  The 
ordinary  master,  especially  if  he  be  only  an  assistant  master, 
accepts  with  a  stronger  or  weaker  protest  what  seems  to  him 
the  inevitable,  and  quiets  any  scruples  that  may  arise  with  the 
Stoic's  maxim  '  Spartam  nactus  es,  banc  exorna.'  Quick  was 
neither  a  Stoic  nor  an  Epicurean.  The  task  assigned  him  he 
carried  out  loyally,  conscientiously  and  ungrudgingly,  but  he 
exercised  freely  the  Englishman's  privilege  of  grumbling,  and 
he  was  throughout  oppressed  by  the  sense  of  being,  as  it  were, 
handicapped  by  tradition  and  carrying  weight  in  a  race  that 
would  tax  all  his  unimpeded  powers  of  body  and  mind. 


32  R.  H.  Quick 

His  reiterated  complaint  against  the  Harrow  system  (and 
Harrow  may  fairly  be  taken  as  a  typical  public  school  of  his 
day)  is  absence  of  method  or  organic  unity  proceeding  from 
wanton  ignorance  of  educational  principles  and  resulting  in 
overworked  masters  and  under-taught  or  ill-taught  boys.  The 
following  entry  is  not  a  passing  growl  blurted  forth  at  the  end 
of  some  fag  day,  but  the  calm  retrospect  of  later  years. 

"  Ste  Beuve  says  that  the  University  teachers  of  the  middle 
of  the  i6th  century  had  come  to  the  worst  stage  possible  '  la 
diversite  dans  la  routine.'  This  was  very  much  the  state  of 
things  when  I  was  a  master  at  Harrow.  Every  man  taught  just 
as  he  liked.  No  attempt  was  made  at  any  uniform  system,  but 
men  were  so  over-worked  that  they  could  not  get  on  without 
routine." 

With  Harrow  boys  his  relations  were  generally  friendly, 
though  they  were  mainly  confined  to  school-time.  The  traditions 
of  the  place  and  the  arrangement  of  hours  make  it  almost  im- 
possible for  a  master  who  has  not  a  house  to  see  anything  of 
boys  in  play-time  unless  he  happens  to  be  an  athlete  and  can 
share  their  games.  The  contrast  between  Harrow  and  Cranleigh 
boys  struck  him  forcibly  and  the  advantage  was  not  always  on 
the  side  of  the  more  aristocratic  school.  "  Individually  (?>. 
when  one  has  any  intercourse  with  them  out  of  school)  their 
manner  is  very  good  and  one  sees  a  considerable  advantage 
they  possess  over  the  shy,  awkward  boys  of  middle  class  schools ; 
but  in  school  I  have  seen  worse  manners  here  than  anywhere. 
Yesterday  was  not  the  first  time  I  have  found  big  fellows  behave 
in  a  way  which  was  distinctly  ungentlemanly."  As  a  form 
master  too  he  found  more  difficulty  in  holding  the  reins  with 
such  a  team  than  with  a  Cranleigh  set.  For  one  thing  the 
average  age  was  greater,  "  in  fact  the  most  difficult  age  of  all, 
because  they  have  lost  the  docility  of  childhood  and  not  yet 
acquired  the  self-respect  of  young  men.  .  .  .  When  I  am  well  and 
in  good  spirits  I  enjoy  taking  a  form  like  this,  just  as  one  enjoys 
riding  a  spirited  horse  that  one  feels  one  can  manage.  .  .  .  Alas  ! 


Impressionist   Teaching  33 

too  often  the  Educational  Reformer  disappears  and  tiie  com- 
mon-form English  Teacher  takes  his  plice  directly  I  go  into 
school.     To-day  I  set  P.  senior  1000  lines  for  impertinence." 

With  Mr  E.  E.  Bovven,  under  whom  as  Head  of  the  Modern 
Side  most  of  Quick's  work  at  Harrow  was  done,  his  relations 
were  perfectly  friendly,  but  no  two  men  could  have  differed 
more  widely  in  temperament,  in  cast  of  mind  and  in  methods 
of  teaching.  It  was  a  case  not  of  the  hare  and  the  tortoise,  but 
we  might  almost  say  of  the  swift  and  the  mole.  There  is  no 
denying  that  as  judged  by  tangible  and  immediate  results  the 
mole  was  not  in  the  running.  The  following  extract  is  obviously 
one-sided  and  partial,  but  it  is  too  valuable  an  exposition  of 
the  possible  dangers  of  the  impressionist  method  to  be  omitted, 
and  Mr  Bowen's  reputation  as  a  teacher  is  too  firmly  estab- 
lished to  be  touched  by  the  personal  criticism. 

"  Bowen  and  I  have  very  little  in  common  as  teachers.  He 
is  very  rapid  in  every  way.  His  great  object  is  to  arouse 
mental  activity,  so  he  goes  over  a  great  deal  of  ground  ;  brings 
in  all  sorts  of  collateral  information  and  must  content  himself 
with  a  good  deal  of  work  in  the  rough.  This  is  the  sort  of 
thing  he  sets  — '  Is  any  modern  expedition  like  that  of  Caesar? 
Are  any  modern  people  like  the  I^ritons?  Are  we  Britons? 
Which  of  the  form  is  most  so?  Is  Napoleon  III  most  nearly 
descended  from  Julius  Caesar,  Cassivellaunus,  Commius  or  the 
Ubii?'  This  sort  of  questioning  is  very  characteristic  of 
Bowen's  mind,  in  which  activity  is  everything,  results  are 
nothing.  I  on  the  other  hand,  if  I  were  more  what  I  should 
like  to  be,  and  what  I  tend  towards,  am  a  complete  antithesis 
to  all  this.  I  have  contracted  my  area  till  it  is  perhaps 
absurdly  small  and  by  going  over  the  same  thing  again  and 
again  with  my  pupils  am  conscious  of  running  a  risk  of  produ- 
cing mental  nausea. 

"  My  notion  of  Bowen's  teaching  is  that  these  boys  will  leave 
school  having  dimly  become  conscious  of  a  lot  of  things,  but 
with  no  certainty  of  anything  beyond  their  own  names.     The 

D 


34  ^-  H.   Quick 

more  intelligent  of  them  may  have  awakened  interests  which 
will  be  sure  to  get  themselves  fed,  but  these  boys  will  be  the 
exceptions,  not  the  rule.  Almost  all  experiments  in  teaching 
seem  to  me  to  fail  for  want  of  definiteness.  The  teachers  who 
are  most  anxious  to  teach  are  just  those  who  fail  most  in  this 
respect.  They  know  a  good  deal  and  want  their  boys  to  know 
a  good  deal  also.  So  they  do  not  stick  to  a  text  book,  but 
plunge  out  in  various  directions  with  great  labour  to  them- 
selves and  —  they  find  in  the  end — without  much  result  in 
their  pupils.  I  get  to  have  a  great  disbelief  in  the  possibility 
of  awakening  intellectual  interests  in  boys  —  boys  under  sixteen 
at  all  events,  and  there  is  only  one  way  in  which  they  can  be 
successfully  taught.  The  subject  matter  must  be  small  in 
quantity  and  very  definite,  and  this  must  be  worked  into  them 
by  constant  repetition. 

"  Bowen  seems  to  me  like  a  man  who  wanting  to  knock  in 
a  lot  of  nails  taps  in  one  loosely,  then  taps  in  the  second 
thereby  shaking  out  the  first,  and  so  on.  There  may  be  some 
French  nails  knocked  into  these  boys'  minds  but  at  present  I 
have  not  come  upon  them. 

"  I  am  sure  the  education  our  boys  get,  on  its  literary  side 
at  least,  is  extremely  faulty.  Intellectual  tastes  are  probably 
checked  rather  than  fostered  by  the  boarding-house  system. 
They  require  to  be  nourished  in  the  young  by  personal  in- 
fluence, but  the  masters  see  nothing  of  the  boys  except  in 
school.  The  boys  make  their  own  world,  from  which  grown 
people  and  the  thoughts  and  interests  of  grown  people  are 
excluded.  If  you  get  boys  to  breakfast  the  only  talk  possible 
seems  school  shop,  games,  and  so  forth.  The  world  of  public 
events  has  little  interest  to  them.  The  world  of  books  still 
less.  If  they  lived  with  more  intellectual  men  they  would  get 
more  intellectual  interests.  This  want  of  interest  is  the  thing 
that  utterly  defeats  one  in  teaching." 

It  would  serve  no  good  purpose  to  recall  the  particular 
incident   of    domestic    history    which    evoked    the    following 


Harassing  Legislation  35 

generalisation.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  somewhere  in  the  seventies 
a  magisterial  decree  went  forth  which  was  at  the  time  bitterly 
resented  by  the  boys  as  an  unprecedented  interference  with 
the  liberty  of  the  subject,  but  for  which  there  were  substantial 
reasons  of  State  that  could  not  be  made  public. 

"  Harassing  Legislation  " 

"When  Dizzy  invented  this  phrase  I  thought  it  was  one 
of  his  tricks  of  language.  Tricks  of  this  kind  always  impose 
on  the  public.  Thus  a  parliamentary  orator  declares  that 
his  plans  '  tho'  new  are  not  new-fangled.'  He  would  be  very 
much  puzzled  to  find  any  difference  between  the  two.  There 
is  a  story  of  Chad  (I  think)  who  declared  some  action  to  be 
'not  only  doubtful  but  dubious.'  Phrases  of  this  sort  sound 
the  right  thing  and  indicate  clearly  that  the  speaker  does  not 
like  this  or  that,  and  all  who  agree  in  the  dislike  think  the 
phrase  excellent  —  just  their  sentiments.  But  Dizzy's  harassing 
legislation  had  more  in  it  than  this.  Lowe  replied  that  all 
good  legislation  harassed  interests  that  are  hostile  to  the  public 
interest ;  and  Bright  said  that  the  Jews  in  the  wilderness 
doubtless  thought  the  Ten  Commandments  harassing  legislation. 
These  answers  were  clever  but  beside  the  point.  If  on  the 
whole  the  pubHc  gains  vastly  by  a  piece  of  legislation  the 
legislation  cannot  be  called  harassing,  though  some  people  are 
harassed  by  it ;  but  there  is  a  principle  which  is  commonly 
received  in  this  country  and  which  the  H.  Spencer  school 
of  Liberals  would  push  to  great  extremes,  the  principle  which 
forbids  State  interference  where  it  is  not  absolutely  necessary. 
If  things  will  go  on  fairly  well  of  themselves  it  is  not  enough 
to  show  that  in  some  respects  they  might  be  improved  by 
legislation.  We  consider  legislative  interference  to  some  extent 
an  evil  and  it  must  be  brought  in  only  to  correct  a  greater 
evil.  .  .  .  The  principle  of  never  legislating  unless  legislation 
is  necessary  to  stop  a  decided  evil  is  generally  accepted  in  our 


36  R.  //.  Quick 

public  schools.  The  boys  have  a  consciousness  of  freedom 
from  restraint  in  things  immaterial  and  this  consciousness  has 
a  very  high  educational  value.  A  boy  early  learns  self-respect 
when  he  finds  he  is  respected  by  his  seniors  and  is  not  worried 
about  trifles.  Unfortunately  it  is  not  easy  to  treat  boys  with 
respect — ^one  feels  one's  power  too  much.  But  public  school- 
masters do  treat  boys  with  tolerable  respect  and  this  is  one 
of  the  good  influences  of  the  place.  The  principle  however 
of  respecting  boys  and  not  subjecting  them  to  paltry  unneces- 
sary restrictions  is  occasionally  forgotten  here." 

The  following  entries  fairly  represent,  not  perhaps  Harrow 
boys,  but  Quick's  relations  to  Harrow  boys  and  his  estimate 
of  public  school  education,  as  formed  at  the  time,  though  his 
determination  to  send  his  own  boy  (as  a  home  boarder)  to 
Harrow  shows  that  it  must  have  been  somewhat  modified  on 
calm  reflection. 

Relation  of  boys  and  masters 

"It's  a  pity  that  masters  see  so  little  of  boys.  I  am  sure 
one's  relations  with  boys  in  school  would  be  better  if  they  had 
other  conceptions  of  the  master  than  of  a  slave-driver,  and  that 
the  master  would  treat  the  boys  with  more  consideration  if 
they  did  not  always  come  before  him  as  '  prisoners  at  the  bar.' 
When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  so  impressed  by  the  coarseness  and 
the  sin  so  prominent  in  school  life,  as  the  boy  sees  it,  that  I 
thought  I  would  never  send  a  boy  from  home  till  he  was  14  or 
15,  and  then  I  would  not  send  him  to  a  public  school.  Friend 
15.,  no  douljt  for  the  same  reason,  thought  he  would  never 
send  a  boy  from  home  at  all ;  and  yet  he  is  in  a  small  house 
here  and  very  happy." 

A  boy  sent  to  apologise  to  R.  H.  Q. 

"  This  '  apology  '  is  the  vilest  humbug,  as  I  know  of  old.  A 
boy  offends  a  superior  and  the  authorities  make  it  part  of  his 
punishment  that  he  shall  tell  lies  to  him.     In  nine  cases  out  of 


Boys  and  Masters  37 

ten  it  means  making  a  boy  say  he  is  sorry  when  he  is  not.  To 
do  R.  justice  he  has  not  hed  a  fraction  beyond  what  was 
demanded  of  him,  indeed  he  may  not  have  Hed  at  all,  for 
he  came  and  stated  his  view  of  the  case  merely  and  said  that 
he  thought  at  the  time  he  was  justified  in  refusing  to  construe 
when  I  put  him  on,  but  now  was  in  doubt  about  it,  though  he 
thought  I  had  been  harsh  with  him.  His  manner  was  not 
defiant  and  I  like  him  the  better  for  saying  what  he  thinks 
instead  of  cringing." 

Boys'  indijference  to  learning 

"  One's  main  difficulty  in  teaching  boys  is  their  utter  in- 
difference to  learning.  The  industrious  boys  are  eager  for 
marks ;  the  rest  look  upon  the  master  as  an  importunate 
creditor  and  do  just  what  they  think  will  be  sufficient  to  keep 
him  quiet.  Bowen  the  other  day  required  his  class  to  learn 
and  to  be  able  to  write  out  a  list  of  the  Kings  of  England  with 
dates.  I  found  that  H.,  a  boy  of  sixteen,  had  committed  to 
memory  the  two  lists  quite  independently  of  one  another,  and 
having  made  some  slip  in  the  list  of  names  he  could  not  get 
his  series  to  coincide  when  he  had  to  write  them  out.  He 
always  had  a  date  too  many." 

Boys  win  not  learn  thoroughly 

"  One  does  one's  best  to  get  work  thoroughly  done,  but 
boys  don't  understand  what  thorough  learning  is.  When  I  look 
over  a  piece  of  German  for  school,  I'll  be  bound  I  spend  as 
much  time  over  it  as  some  of  the  boys  who  think  they  have 
learnt  the  lesson  well.  Indeed  if  boys  tried  to  do  the  work  set 
them  thoroughly  they  would  never  have  time  to  get  through  it. 
Experience  has  shown  me  that  boys  will  get  to  know  something 
about  a  lesson,  the  amount  of  that  something  varying  with  the 
individual,  but  not  with  the  length  of  the  lesson.  Beyond  this 
they  won't  go,  and  if  you  make  the  lesson  short  they  simply 


38  R.  H.  Quick 

spend  less  time  in  preparing  them.  The  only  way  of  really 
getting  boys  to  know  things  properly  is  to  go  over  and  over  the 
same  ground  in  class.  But  how  are  you  to  do  this  and  yet 
employ  boys  in  preparation  time?  for  if  you  tell  them  to  go 
over  back  work  by  themselves,  they  simply  won't  do  it.  They 
knoiv  that,  they  think.  So  the  necessity  of  keeping  something 
like  a  fixed  ratio  between  preparation  time  and  school  time 
almost  forbids  the  amount  of  repetition  which  is  essential  for 
good  teaching." 

A  good  Harroiv  story 

"T.  H.  Steele,  says  the  legend,  was  told  that  there  was 
cribbing  in  his  form.  He  orated  them  thereon  —  said  he  had 
heard  that  some  boys  used  unfair  means  in  preparing  lessons 
&c.  The  boy  in  particular  he  suspected  was  Buller  the 
cricketer,  but  when  he  asked  the  boys  who  had  used  cribs 
to  stand  up,  all  stood  except  Buller.  Steele  was  sorely  puzzled. 
'Buller,'  he  said,  'are  you  quite  sure  you  have  never  used 
a  translation?'  'Yes,  Sir.'  'How  then  did  you  manage?' 
'  Never  looked  at  a  lesson.  Sir.'  " 

Athletolatry 

"Yesterday  I  was  talking  to  P.,  an  intelligent  boy  who  is 
not  an  athlete.  He  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  a  law  of 
nature,  that  was  no  more  a  grievance  than  the  trade  winds,  that 
a  boy  could  not  be  popular  unless  he  was  good  at  games. 
His  theory  given  without  the  least  irony  was  this  —  grown-up 
people  are  popular  in  society  in  proportion  to  their  possessions. 
A  boy's  physical  strength  and  skill  are  his  possessions  and  he 
takes  rank  accordingly.  By  P.'s  account  a  boy  might  be  liked 
even  if  he  were  successful  in  school  work,  provitlcd  he  were 
clever  and  did  not  spend  much  time  ujjon  it,  but  nobody 
would  be  liked  who  'swotted.'  '  I  believe,'  said  he,  '  that  the 
fear  of  being  chaffed  or  bullied  for  swotting  keeps  fellows  from 
work  more  than  anything  else.'     This  then  is  the  training  that 


Athlclolatiy  39 

Iwys  get  in  a  public  school.  They  cannot  ])ursue  their  own 
ideal  without  restraint.  Does  the  body  politic  suffer  more 
from  the  class  of  pleasure-worshippers  thus  engendered  or  from 
the  habitual  criminals?" 

The  seamy  side  of  sclioolboy  life 

"The  '  two  worlds'  of  Disraeli's  Sybil  have  a  parallel  in  the 
two  worlds  of  a  large  school.  Very  seldom  does  a  master  get 
any  genuine  insight  into  the  real  world,  the  world  not  of 
theories  or  of  reine  Veniiinft,  but  of  interests,  joys  and  sorrows, 
hopes  and  fears,  which  lie  so  near  him.  I  have  lately  got 
just  a  glimpse  into  this  world.  All  observant  masters  must 
have  noticed  the  bloom  gradually  rubbed  off  the  new  boy, 
seen  his  face  lose  its  smile,  his  manner  its  openness,  his  very 
work  its  token  of  care  and  interest.  Of  course  I  am  speaking 
of  the  boy  reared  at  home.  The  private  school  boy  has 
probably  everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  from  the 
public  school.  But  the  boy  who  has  associated  much  with 
grown  people  at  home  generally  brings  a  freedom  from  restraint 
in  his  dealings  with  masters  which  is  specially  the  object  of  the 
schoolboy's  hatred  and  derision.  The  new  boy  is  '  cocky  '  or 
'  his  mammy's  darling'  and  all  the  energy  of  his  companions  is 
directed  to  curing  him  of  these  foibles  and  bringing  him  into 
regulation  form." 

Stiidiiim  discendi  vohinfafe  quae  cogi  non  potest  constat 

Quint,  lib.   i.  cap.  3. 

"Here  we  come  to  the  grand  obst;\cle  which  makes  learning 
at  a  sciiool  like  Harrow  out  of  the  question.  Most  of  the 
parents  don't  care  about  their  boys  learning  classics  and  think 
with  some  reason  that  modern  languages,  if  acquired  at  all, 
must  be  acquired  elsewhere.  So  the  boys  themselves  who 
take  their  cue  from  their  parents  don't  want  to  learn.  They 
'  prepare  the   lessons '   in  a  perfunctory  way,  for  the   master 


40  R.  H,  Quick 

might  punish  them  if  they  didn't,  but  as  for  acquiring  anything 
or  understanding  anything,  no  notion  of  it  ever  enters  their 
heads." 

Routine 

"  There  is  a  ^riking  passage  in  one  of  the  old  essayists  in 
which  he  describes  his  reflections  on  seeing  two  masons  spend- 
ing the  day  in  rubbing  two  slabs  of  stone  together  to  polish 
them.  Here,  says  he,  are  two  beings  who  have  a  few  years 
given  them,  as  they  believe,  to  prepare  for  eternity  and  a  great 
part  of  this  time  they  spend  in  doing  work  which  is  hardly 
worth  doing  at  all  and  which  might  be  done  by  machinery 
better  than  by  manual  labour. 

"  We  English  generally,  and  schoolmasters  in  particular,  are 
constantly  rubbing  stones  together  without  the  excuse  of  the 
masons  that  we  are  driven  to  it  in  order  to  earn  our  daily 
bread.  We  have  life,  energy,  power  of  thought,  given  us,  and 
we  don't  exactly  know  what  to  do  with  them.  We  feel  a  sort 
of  responsibility  for  our  use  of  them  and  this  feeling  is  held  in 
check  by  routine  work.  So  long  as  we  are  doing  something 
which  has  an  object  in  it  and  that  a  good  object  in  its  way  we 
suppose  it  is  all  right.  Whether  much  higher  objects  might 
not  be  attained  as  well  as  the  lower,  if  we  gave  ourselves  time 
to  think  about  them,  is  a  consideration  we  put  out  of  sight  as 
much  as  possible.  The  complicated  system  of  routine  work 
in  which  I  have  let  myself  get  involved  here  and  in  which  I 
find  a  sort  of  pleasure  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  Englishman's 
usual  way.  It  is  not  in  my  case  that  I  don't  know  what  to  do 
with  my  leisure.  For  instance  I  never  tire  of  reading  and  yet 
at  present,  and  indeed  generally,  I  never  allow  myself  the 
luxury  of  reading.  So  long  as  I  am  doing  work  which  is 
hardly  worth  doing  at  all  and  which  most  men  could  do  better 
(i.e.  looking  over  exercises  and  adding  up  marks)  I  feel  quite 
content. 

"  How  oddly  we  I'^nglish  differ  from  the  J.atin  races  who 


A    Whole-school  Day  41 

looked  upon  business  simply  as  negotium,  '  the  negation  of 
leisure.'  I  live  in  a  state  of  constant  grind,  have  no  time  for 
reading  or  thought  and  feel  that  I  suffer  from  thus  turning 
myself  into  a  part  of  the  scholastic  apparatus  ;  and  yet  I  like  it, 
and  if  I  could  get  ait-dcssi/s  de  ines  affaires  and  feel  that  I  was 
a  thoroughly  efficient  part  in  the  machinery,  \  should  even 
enjoy  it.  Yet  what  a  narrow  emotionless  life  it  is  !  I  am  like 
a  horse  turning  a  wheel  in  a  mine.  I  hope  1  shan't  find  when 
I  come  into  the  daylight  (if  ever  I  do)  that  1  have  lost  my 
sight. 

"  The  difference  in  one's  feelings  and  capacities  now  that  I 
happen  to  be  au-dcssiis  from  what  they  were  when  I  was  au- 
dcssoiis  is  really  almost  as  great  as  between  having  one's  head 
under  water  and  above  water." 

Tiiiie-fabk  of  an  ordinary  day's  ivork  at  Hari-ow 

"  Down  at  6.  Worked  at  Prendergast  and  French  con- 
struing till  school  at  7.30.  Breakfast  9.15  to  9.45.  Then 
maps,  exercises,  &c.  till  12  o'clock  school.  From  i  to  1.45 
lunch.  From  1.45  to  3  prepare  French  construing  and  com- 
l^ose  German  exercise.  From  3  to  4.30  in  school.  4.30  to 
5.30  looking  over  exercises.  5.30  to  6.30  Caesar  lesson.  8  to 
10.30  looking  over  German  exercise." 

A  day  of  13  hours  nearly  continuous  work.  This,  as  he 
confesses,  is  partly  due  to  slowness  in  correcting  exercises,  and 
partly  to  conscientiousness  in  preparing  work.  On  the  latter 
point  he  says  what  all  masters  must  have  felt,  though  few  are 
able  consistently  to  act  on  their  convictions,  that  he  cannot 
take  a  form  with  comfort  unless  he  has  gone  over  the  work  and 
thought  over  the  lesson  before  going  into  school. 

After  this  we  are  quite  prepared  for  his  confession  that  his 
powers  of  discipline  are  apt  to  flag  before  the  end  of  the  day. 

"  We  always  in  our  forecasts  both  for  boys  and  for  ourselves 
reckon  on  so  much  work  for  so  much  time,  but  in  point  of 
fact  one  can  do  twice  as  much  in  some  hours  as  in  others. 


42  R.  H.  Qmck 

One  is  hardly  the  same  being  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end 
of  a  day.  At  first  school  one  has  no  difficulty  in  jjreventing 
whispering ;  at  last  school  I  cannot  at  present  stop  it. 

"  I  am  quite  conscious  that  many  (probably  most)  of  my 
lessons  are  very  poor,  but  I  don't  quite  see  how  to  improve, 
and  the  fact  is  that  one's  energy  is  so  taxed  to  get  through 
one's  work  that  one  has  none  to  spare  for  any  attempt  after  an 
ideal  standard. 

"  'J'he  so-called  '  teacher '  of  boys  is  not  a  teacher  at  all  but 
an  exactor  of  work.  What  a  comfort  it  would  be  if  by  any 
change  we  could  transfer  our  energy  into  the  direction  of 
teaching  instead.  This  is  the  distinction  between  the  school 
teacher  and  the  University  coach.  If  we  could  only  hit  on 
anything  that  boys  wanted  to  learn  we  might  change  our 
method  completely. 

"  In  considering  the  comparative  merits  of  young  and 
middle-aged  masters  there  are  the  energy  and  elasticity  of 
spirits  of  the  one  to  be  set  against  the  experience  of  the  other. 
The  exuberant  life  of  the  young  man  is  like  a  flame  to  which 
work  is  as  fuel,  but  with  us  who  have  turned  forty  the  flame 
has  dropped  to  mere  smouldering.  One  is  surprised  at  the 
immense  amount  of  work  which  some  men  get  through,  but 
the  fact  is  that  those  who  fail,  as  I  do,  in  catching  up  my 
work  do  not  fail  so  much  for  want  of  time  as  for  want  of 
energy.  \\'hen  energy  is  weak,  things  which  one  has  no 
inclination  to  do  either  are  left  undone  or,  as  more  commonly 
happens,  are  done  slowly  and  so  one  flills  in  arrears. 

"  The  only  thing  that  makes  my  life  tolerable  is  that  I  am  on 
a  friendly  footing  with  the  boys  and  feel  that  I  have  a  fair  hold 
upon  them. 

'•  I  hate  it  (German  prose)  and  it's  a  very  bad  sign  indeed 
when  the  master  does  not  like  the  lesson.  Time  was  when  I 
delighted  in  most  of  my  lessons  but  here  with  me  there  are 
only  a  few  which  succeed  well  enough  to  be  pleasurable  to  the 
master. 


Scripture  Lessons     .  43 

"  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  whereas  it  used  to  be  my 
greatest  pleasure  to  go  into  school,  I  would  now  rather  have 
an  hour's  stone-breaking." 

Scriptinr  Lessons 

"  The  truth  is  that  as  I  drifted  away  from  the  High  Church 
party  (now  many  years  ago)  I  found  that  I  did  not  understand 
the  Scriptures,  and  without  any  intention  of  doing  so  I  gave  up 
the  study  of  them.  In  parish  work  one  found  no  time,  in 
school  work  no  necessity,  and  since  I  have  been  here  I  have 
been  worked  too  hard  to  have  leisure  for  study  of  any  kind. 
Now  I  have  more  time  and  my  old  pleasure  in  studying  the 
N.  T.  is  reviving.  But  the  boys  seem  to  have  no  ideas  con- 
nected with  the  Bible  and  very  much  less  knowledge  than  we 
had  when  I  was  a  boy. 

"  On  Sundays  my  boys  come  for  an  hour  to  be  heard  some 
chapters  of  the  O.  T.  which  they  are  supposed  to  have  read  by 
themselves.  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  same  writings 
were  perfectly  adapted  to  direct  the  mode  of  life  of  a  people 
like  the  Jews  in  the  wilderness  and  to  serve  as  a  lesson  for 
public  school  boys  in  the  19th  century.  I  generally  read  some 
book  to  the  boys  for  the  last  half  of  the  hour.  Monday,  first 
school  is  '  divinity '  also.  This  consists  in  translating  some 
French  N.  T.  and  saying  some  by  heart.  It  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  lesson  in  French." 

Old  Testament  Lessons 

"  Conservative  as  I  am,  I  cannot  get  reconciled  to  the  weekly 
lesson  in  Joshua  &c.  It  makes  me  think  of  Herschel's  announce- 
ment that  nutritious  bread  may  be  made  from  sawdust.  But 
those  who  have  a  difficulty  in  making  bread  from  wheat  are  not 
likely  to  succeed  with  sawdust.  The  popular  way  of  treating 
the  O.  T.  —  getting  some  vague  ideas  about  the  main  lines  of 
history,  and  picking  out  here  and  there  'jewels  five  words  long,' 
such  as  '  I  will  not  leave  thee  nor  forsake  thee  '  has  the  arreat 


44  .        ^-  H.  Quick 

merit  of  simplicity,  but  when  one  comes  to  question  boys 
about  the  chapters,  one  gets  involved  in  names  which  can  have 
no  significance  at  all  for  us.  '  Who  was  Jair  ?  A  man  who 
took  Argob.  Who  was  Nobah?  A  man  who  took  Keneth.' 
All  this  sort  of  thing  does  not  seem  the  least  worth  studying. 
The  records  are  very  meagre  and  are  partly  defaced.  I  cannot 
see  that  they  can  be  studied  with  much  profit." 

Oji  shortening  life 

"  When  we  speak  of  a  long  or  short  life  we  ought  to  remember 
that  two  people  may  draw  the  same  number  of  breaths  and  see 
the  same  number  of  sundowns  and  yet  have  very  different 
amounts  of  life.  First  of  all  health  makes  a  great  difference ; 
some  days  are  worth  many  others.  Small  ailments,  especially 
headaches,  actually  destroy  a  large  portion  of  one's  time.  Just 
at  present  a  very  moderate  amount  of  work  makes  me  as  much 
employed  as  the  hardest-worked  man  in  Harrow,  simply  because 
a  great  deal  of  my  time  is  destroyed  by  headaches.  Then 
again  the  man  who  has  the  knack  of  knocking  off  routine  work 
lives  longer  than  one  who  potters  over  it.  The  proverb  '  What- 
ever is  worth  doing  at  all  is  worth  doing  well '  is  nonsense,  if  it 
is  taken  to  mean  that  we  should  do  everything  as  well  as  we 
can  by  any  expenditure  of  time.  If  it  means  that  the  time 
being  a  constant  quantity,  we  should  put  our  best  energies  into 
it,  the  proverb  is  a  platitude.  Of  course  we  should  do  every- 
thing as  well  as  we  can  in  this  sense.  But  a  great  many  people 
do  unimportant  things  too  well,  spend  an  amount  of  time  over 
them  which  they  don't  deserve,  and  their  life  is  shortened.  It 
is  well  that  there  should  be  a  kind  of  attraction  for  some  people 
in  routine  work.  I  am  never  so  happily  employed  as  when  I 
am  doing  what  to  many  men  would  be  drudgery  e.g.  the 
correction  of  German  exercises  (when  I  have  made  them  my- 
self), but  one  is  tempted  to  involve  oneself  in  too  much  of 
work  of  this  sort,  and  as  I  do  it  slowly,  it  becomes  a  terrible 


A  retrospect  45 

shortening  of  one's  days.  What  a  strange  frame  of  mind  this 
is  by  which  one  deliberately  turns  oneself  into  a  machine  with- 
out thought  or  feeling  !  " 

A  retrospect.     7  Feb.  '74 

" '  Es  mochte  kein  Hund  so  langer  leben  !  '  These  words 
of  Faust  have  not  unfrequently  come  into  liiy  mind  to  express 
my  feelings  since  I  have  been  at  Harrow.  Having  got  what 
might  seem  a  most  enviable  jiosition  I  find  too  often  that  this 
is  the  outcome  of  it.  Not  that  I  am  by  any  means  unhappy, 
but  there  comes  a  feeling  over  me  at  times  that  either  some 
other  people  or  oneself  ought  to  get  some  considerable  benefit 
out  of  one's  life  and  one  can't  find  that  any  one  does  get  much 
from  it.  The  daily  scramble  with  one's  work  prevents  my  ever 
doing  anything  for  amusement.  I  occasionally  take  exercise 
for  health  and  the  exercise  is  pleasant  enough,  but  I  never 
take  it  except  for  health  and  rarely  take  enough  even  for 
health.  ...  If  I  felt  I  were  teaching  boys  well  or  doing  them 
any  good,  I  don't  think  I  should  want  Ehr''  nnd  Herrlichkeit 
der  Welt  or  anything  for  myself.  But  I  am  profoundly  dissatis- 
fied with  the  system  of  the  Modern  Side  and  I  don't  find  my 
boys  get  on.  The  solitary  thing  in  which  I  have  the  slightest 
success  is  in  keeping  order  without  punishment.  .  .  .  My  boys 
and  I  are  on  a  friendly  footing,  but  our  connection  is  not 
a  strong  one.  I  have  to  put  up  with  so  much  bad  work  that 
I  have  got  hardly  to  expect  any  good  work.  My  feeling  that  I 
ought  to  do  something  better  with  the  best  years  of  my  life  led 
me  to  hint  to  B.  that  I  should  give  up  my  berth  here. 

"  I  never  go  anywhere,  I  never  even  play  with  a  child.  I 
have  time  for  nothing  but  headaches. 

"  What  tremendous  advantages  the  Roman  CathoHcs  have 
in  some  ways.  They  cannot  become  so  entirely  isolated.  They 
belong  to  a  body  and  a  system,  and  the  body  and  the  system 
must   often   be  wiser   than   the   individual.     Laudes   canentcs 


46  R.  H.   Quick 

martyris.  We  never  sing  the  praises  of  a  martyr.  We  some- 
how do  not  seem  to  have  much  in  common  with  the  martyrs. 
We  are  very  aiifgeJdart  no  doubt  and  each  of  us  has  some 
connection  with  the  universe.     So  has  a  hmpet." 

Dcsideria.     Oct.   lo  '74 

"  Last  Thursday  was  Founder's  Day.  I  was  as  usual  weighed 
down  with  the  feehng  of  want  of  leisure,  for  I  have  to  preach 
on  Sunday,  and  as  usual  my  exercises  are  in  arrears.  I  got  the 
coil  round  me  early  in  the  Quarter  and  cannot  get  it  off.  But 
in  spite  of  the  feeling  I  went  for  a  little  while  to  the  singing  in 
Speech  Room.  As  I  looked  down  on  the  boys  from  the  Gal- 
lery I  had  a  dim  consciousness  how  one  might  have  been  a 
force  among  them  if  I  had  not  been  always  overwhelmed  with 
exercises  —  if  I  had  ever  been  fairly  up  with  my  work.  But 
this  consciousness  of  arrears  has  always  dwarfed  me  and  made 
me  useless  for  any  purpose.  The  state  of  the  boys  intellectu- 
ally seems  to  me  to  grow  worse  and  worse.  Their  lessons  do 
not  toiic]i  their  minds  at  all  and  every  new  voyage  of  discovery 
I  make  reveals  some  unexpected  realm  of  darkness." 

Cribs 

In  Nov.  1870  the  authorisation  of  the  use  of  cribs  was  a 
burning  question  and  fly  leaves  were  issued  on  either  side. 
A  masters'  meeting  was  held  to  discuss  the  subject.  Quick 
was  neutral,  inclining  to  the  conservative  side  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  a  leap  in  the  dark  and  that  whatever  the  conse- 
quences might  be  it  would  be  hardly  possible  to  revoke  the 
permission.'  He  discusses  a  very  clever  letter  of  Mr  Bowen 
in  favour  of  their  use. 

"  If  we  don't  allow  cribs  there  is  no  satisfactory  alternative, 
says  Bowen.  Cribs  cannot  be  kept  out  by  punishment,  and  if 
we  appeal  to  a  boy's  honour  we  bring  the  Ark  into  the  battle 
and  run  a  great  risk  of  losing  it.     He  even  says  that  a  boy  who 


Cribs  47 

breaks  down  under  the  temptation  to  use  a  crib  has  a  grave 
charge  to  bring  against  the  masters  who  invented  the  sin  for 
him.  But  this  is  surely  not  a  fair  statement.  If,  as  I  believe, 
the  study  of  foreign  languages,  especially  ancient  languages, 
loses  much  of  its  educational  value  when  no  attempt  is  made  to 
gather  an  author's  meaning  from  his  words,  it  is  incumbent  on 
me  to  urge  my  pupils  not  to  use  cribs.  When  the  offence  is 
after  all  not  in  itself  an  immoral  act  and  where  there  is  no 
effectual  means  of  preventing  it,  we  should  be  wrong  in  treating 
with  severity  the  few  cases  that  come  before  us.  But  suppose 
we  legalise  cribs.  Then  no  one  will  ever  try  to  find  out  an 
author's  meaning  by  himself  The  boy  will  have  to  force  the 
meaning  into  the  words,  instead  of  forcing  it  out  of  them. 
The  connection  between  the  words  and  the  meaning  is  then  not 
the  living  thing  at  all  that  it  is  when  the  student  only  knows  the 
meaning  from  the  words.  And  I  very  much  doubt  if  the  con- 
nection will  be  permanent  in  the  student's  mind.  Bowen 
says  that  the  length  of  lessons  may  by  help  of  cribs  be  doubled 
or  trebled,  and  then  the  student  will  come  across  every 
peculiarity  so  much  more  often.  But  here  he  and  I  join  issue 
at  once.  I  care  rather  about  the  clearness  than  the  frequency 
of  the  impressions.  At  the  pace  he  goes  the  boys  can  have 
hardly  any  clear  impressions  at  all ;  indeed  he  recognises  this 
about  the  greater  part  of  each  lesson,  for  he  only  sets  a  single 
sentence  for  parsing.  What  is  a  boy  the  better  for  getting  up 
some  indifferent  English  and  connecting  it  arbitrarily  with  a  set 
of  German  words  of  which  he  knows  next  to  nothing  !  Of 
course  the  opposite  or  accurate  method  is  not  so  easily  carried 
out.  Boys  won't  get  up  construing  thoroughly,  and  if  you  set 
it  a  second  time  they  won't  prepare  it  at  all.  Moreover  it  is  of 
no  use  expecting  boys  who  know  but  little  of  a  language  to  take 
a  dictionary  and  dig  out  the  meaning  of  a  piece  of  (jerman  or 
Latin.  I  at  present  should  go  in  for  a  beginner's  book  in 
which  the  machinery  of  the  language  was  thoroughly  worked  in 
e\txy  w^y  7uit/i  as  /no  wonh  as  possible.     After  that  reading 


48  R.  H.  Quick 

books  with  vocabularies.  .  .  ."  Of  the  discussion  he  writes  :  — 
"  The  only  point  on  which  we  all  were  agreed  was  in  con- 
demning things  as  they  are  and  in  urging  the  necessity  of  some 
change.  A  small  majority  were  for  legalising  the  use  of  cribs, 
but  of  this  majority  few  believed  that  languages  should  be 
taught  in  this  way,  only,  as  it  was  distinctly  said  by  one  or  two, 
the  results  of  the  present  system  are  so  small  that  change 
could  hardly  do  harm." 

Pupil  Room,  or  Tutorial  System  at  Harrow 

"At  masters'  meeting  to-night  the  discussion  on  the  Tutorial 
system  opened  with  a  speech  from  Dr  Butler.  Our  present 
difficulty  comes  of  having  new  wine  in  old  bottles.  When  the 
Modern  Side  was  started  it  was  determined  that  every  tutor 
should  teach  his  pupils  just  what  he  liked  as  a  private  subject. 
Now  all  tutors  except  the  composition  masters  are  form-masters 
and  almost  all  of  them  house-masters  as  well.  So  they  have 
their  time  and  attention  pretty  well  taken  up  without  any 
special  work  as  tutors.  Yet  some  forty  boys  of  various  ages 
and  every  shade  of  knowledge  and  capacity  come  to  the  tutor 
to  be  taught  anything  he  likes.  Most  men  feel  that  the  thing 
becomes  a  mere  sham,  and  many,  or  at  least  some,  would 
abolish  the  tutorial  system  and  make  each  man  the  tutor  to  the 
boys  in  his  own  house.  Dr  Butler  however  said  that  such  a 
change  as  this  was  wholly  out  of  the  question.  The  great  evil 
of  public  schools,  he  said,  was  treating  boys  too  much  in  the 
mass.  The  tendency  of  the  day  was  to  get  this  corrected 
as  much  as  possible.  Hence  parents  lay  stress  on  their  boys 
having  separate  rooms,  as  at  Eton.  This  individual  treatment 
then  must  be  secured  by  all  possible  means.  Each  boy  should 
have  a  tutor  who  should  make  a  study  of  his  character.  But 
here  comes  in  the  obvious  objection  —  why  should  a  boy  who 
is,  say,  one  of  eight  boys  in  a  mathematical  or  natural  science 
master's  house,  need  to  have  a  study  of  his  character  made, 
not  by  the   mathematical  or  natural  science   master,  but  by 


Pupil  Room  49 

a  classical  master  who  has  perhaps  a  large  house  of  his  own, 
and  certainly  some  39  other  pupils?  To  this  difficulty  Butler 
addressed  himself,  but  quite  unsuccessfully,  as  I  thought.  All 
he  would  say  was  that  there  must  be  an  intellectual  connection 
as  well.  Therefore  he  must  go  to  a  tutor  who  has  something  to 
do  with  his  instruction.  This  is  surely  one  of  those  subtleties 
which  clever  men  invent  and  even  believe  in,  or  fancy  they  do, 
when  they  don't  want  to  change  what  is  established.  Even 
this  odd  defence  could  not  be  set  up  for  the  tutorial  system 
■when  applied  to  Modern  boys.  A  boy  is,  say,  with  Bushell  and 
is  a  Modern.  He  therefore  learns  no  Classics  to  speak  of,  yet 
he  has  to  go  to  a  classical  man  who  hardly  pretends  to  teach 
him  anything,  in  order  that  this  classical  man  may  make  a  study 
of  his  character.  Butler  admitted  that  tutors  were  over- 
worked, but  he  proposed  that  they  should  take  their  form 
work  easier  and  set  fewer  exercises.  The  fear  of  boys  being 
idle  had  he  thought  been  pushed  to  an  extreme.  For 
preparation  too  he  thought  arrangements  might  be  made  for 
lightening  work." 

The  Lyon  Foundation  at  Harrow 

"  The  Governors  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  most 
of  the  boys  should  not  receive  any  pecuniary  benefit  from  the 
property  left  by  John  Lyon ;  so  they  propose  that  non- 
foundationers  should  pay  a  fixed  sum  for  the  use  of  buildings 
etc.  But  the  masters  worked  themselves  up  into  a  highly 
protestant  condition  because  the  Chapel,  the  Vaughan  Library 
and  so  on  have  been  provided  not  by  foundationers  or  their 
friends,  but  by  foreigners  and  their  friends.  One  man  last 
niglit  discovered  that  instead  of  non-foundationers  paying  for 
foundationers,  it  should  in  justice  be  the  other  way  about, 
which  meant,  I  suppose,  that  a  certain  number  of  residents 
of  Harrow  or  of  poor  families  throughout  the  country  should 
be  accorded  the  privilege  of  contributing  to  pay  the  expenses 

E 


50  R.  H.  Quick 

of  the  sons  of  the  richest  men  in  the  country.  The  fact  is  the 
masters  here  consider  simply  that  if  the  foundation  money  is 
spent  in  educating  wholly  or  partly  selected  boys,  they  (the 
masters)  will  not  be  benefited,  but  if  the  money  goes  to  general 
school  expenses  a  good  deal  of  it  will  come  in  the  end  to  them. 
What  are  the  facts?  Here,  and  still  more  at  Eton,  there  is 
considerable  capital,  the  interest  of  which  goes  to  the  school. 
Some  of  this  money  was  originally  given  for  the  benefit  of  the 
poor.  Some  was  subscribed,  as  in  the  case  of  our  recent 
building  fund,  with  no  such  object,  but  simply  for  the  sake  of 
the  school.  Who  then  ought  to  benefit  by  this  capital?  Should 
any  part  go  to  the  poor?  If  so,  this  could  only  be  done  by 
taking  some  part  of  the  school  revenues  and  applying  them  to 
the  maintenance  of  other  schools,  whether  primary  or  middle- 
class.  Most  men,  however,  would  not  fancy  the  alienation  of 
funds  for  any  purpose. 

"  The  great  object  of  headmasters  is  to  attract  clever  boys, 
and  they  would  use  all  the  endowments  for  the  benefit  of  the 
clever.  Butler,  for  instance,  exerted  himself  tremendously  to 
get  money  at  the  Tercentenary  because  he  thinks  that  in  the 
future  money  will  purchase  brains,  and  that  if  Harrow  is 
poorly  endowed,  Winchester,  Eton,  etc.,  will  draw  off  all  our 
intellect." 

From  this  and  other  passages  in  the  diary  I  gather  that 
Quick  held  that  endowments  should  be  wholly  employed  in 
diminishing  or  cancelling  the  school  fees  for  the  children  of 
needy  parents.  He  held  that  any  part  of  such  funds  as  was 
expended  on  general  school  expenses  would  ultimately  benefit, 
not  the  pupils  or  parents,  but  the  masters.  Parents  of  Eton 
or  Harrow  bo}^  are  generally  well  to  do  and  expect  to  pay  a 
good  deal ;  at  any  rate  they  are  not  fitting  objects  of  charity. 
With  a  poorly  endowed  school  like  Harrow  the  point  at  issue 
had  rather  a  speculative  than  a  practical  interest,  but  at  richly 
endowed  scliools  like  Eton  and  Winchester  it  has  since  become 
a  burning  question. 


Public  School  Discipline  51 

Monitorial  system 

"  The  question  of  public  school  discipline  has  been  for  the 
last  fortnight  discussed  pretty  freely  in  the  papers  a  propos 
of  the  Winchester  tunding  case. 

"  The  history  of  the  monitorial  system  seems  somewhat 
obscure.  There  is  nothing  of  the  kind  at  Eton.  Perhaps  it  is 
a  Wykehamist  institution  and  was  carried  by  Arnold  to  Rugby 
and  thence  by  Vaughan  here. 

"  Dr  Butler  told  me  that  he  had  found  from  papers  of  his 
father  that  in  1808  the  monitors  had  'whopped'  a  boy  and 
that  the  headmaster,  Dr  Butler,  had  announced  that  they  had 
no  such  power  and  never  should  have  while  he  was  headmaster. 
The  monitors  resisted  this  at  first  but  afterwards  came  to  the 
Doctor  and  caved  in.  This,  however,  was  not  the  end.  They 
were  chaffed  about  their  submission  and  a  rebellion  began 
which  led  to  the  expulsion  of  eight  boys.  In  Wordsworth's 
time  the  monitors  used  to  whop  and  '  toe,'  but  whopping  was 
not  legalised.  Dr  Vaughan  when  he  came  wanted  them  to 
accept  responsibility  and  to  punish  for  school  offences.  This 
they  positively  decHned  to  do.  I  suppose  Vaughan  got  his 
Woiy  by  degrees.  Dr  Butler  lately  asked  the  head  of  the  school 
what  he  considered  to  be  the  limit  of  cuts  with  the  cane  which 
might  be  inflicted.  He  said  15,  though  it  never  reached  this 
number  in  practice.     Dr  Butler  said  10  must  be  the  limit." 

Harroiv  in    Wordsworth' s  time 

"  The  government  of  the  school  in  Wordsworth's  time  was 
a  limited  anarchy.  Boys  used  to  do  pretty  much  what  they 
Uked.  They  cut  '  bill,'  getting  other  boys  to  answer  for  them 
and  went  up  to  town  for  the  great  cricket  matches.  They  got 
out  at  nights  and  played  Will  o'  the  wisp,  i.e.  they  chased  a  boy 
carrying  a  lantern.  They  played  cricket,  smokers  against  non- 
smokers,  the  smokers  smoking  all  the  time.  Wordsworth  never 
looked  up  from  his  book  during  school,  so  that  all  kinds  of 


52  R.  H.  Quick 

things  went  on  in  the  6th  fiorm  in  school,  ev'en  card-playing. 
Roundell  remembers  a  boy  filling  his  mouth  with  bits  of  paper 
and  spitting  them  out  as  if  he  were  sick.  Wordsworth  only 
told  him  to  quote  something  to  reprove  his  own  folly,  on  which 
the  boy  quoted  coolly  Duke  est  dcsiperc  in  loco.  The  boys  used 
to  go  off  with  Billy  Warner  fishing  for  the  day.  Shooting  too  was 
not  uncommon.  On  one  occasion,  directly  after  2  o'clock  bill, 
Currer  and  another  set  off  with  a  gun,  the  one  carrying  the 
stock  and  the  other  the  barrel.  Wordsworth  came  riding  up 
and  reproved  one  of  them  for  being  in  a  shooting  jacket,  but  he 
never  saw  the  gun.  At  the  dame's  house  (the  old  Vicarage)  a 
monitor  was  much  disliked  by  the  boys.  The  boys  accordingly 
asked  leave  of  some  other  monitors  and  with  their  permission 
gave  him  a  tremendous  kicking." 

Time  spent  in  looking  over  exercises 

"Yesterday  I  was  talking  to  J.  .A..  Cruikshank  and  got  him 
to  add  up  the  time  he  spends  weekly  in  correcting  exercises 
and  he  found  it  to  be  between  16  and  18  hours  a  week.  Now 
this  is  surely  a  great  blunder.  It  is  not  only  a  man's  time 
that  is  lost  in  this  way,  but  his  energy  and  animal  spirits  and 
freshness  are  knocked  out  of  him  too.  If  he  does  all  this 
looking  over  work  he  can't  be  thoroughly  fit  for  his  other  work. 
F.  E.  Marshall  says  he  looks  over  about  the  same  amount  and 
has  a  greater  amount  of  teaching  too.  Every  hour  in  school  is 
supposed  to  mean  that  a  boy  does  an  hour's  written  exercise 
out,  and  this  F.  looks  over  and  marks  though  he  doesn't  in 
most  cases  give  it  back.  Of  course  he  dashes  it  off  f;ist  or  he 
never  could  get  through  the  amnimt.  All  this  looking  over 
comes  from  boys  being  so  littK-  in  school.  They  must  be 
employed  out  of  school  especially  in  the  evenings  and  so 
these  exercises  are  set.  There  is  of  course  a  great  risk,  in 
some  cases  a  certainty  of  their  getting  their  work  done  for 
them.  Some  masters  say  they  wish  boys  to  work  together, 
and  when  boys  doing  the  same  work  are  together  without  the 


Ojit  of  scJiool  work  53 

presence  of  a  master  it  is  not  in  hnman  nature  that  they  should 
work  quite  independently.  I  say  they  should  have  more  time 
with  their  form  masters.  G.  H.  Hallam  says  this  would  be 
very  bad  :  that  the  chief  thing  is  for  boys  to  learn  how  to 
work  by  themselves  and  that  they  are  not  thrown  enough  on 
their  own  resources,  as  it  is.  I  don't  see  myself  what  would 
be  the  right  thing,  and  can't  find  anyone  who  talks  sense  about 
it.  If  much  written  work  is  done,  either  the  masters  get  slack 
in  revising  it  and  the  boys  get  to  go  slap-dash  at  everything 
and  do  it  anyhow  (there  is  a  great  deal  of  this  sort  of  work 
here)  or  else  the  master  gets  all  his  energy  taken  out  of  him 
by  correction  of  exercises.  I  myself  am  not  a  good  specimen, 
as  I  bungle  over  the  job  so,  but  I  give  and  have  given  so 
much  time  to  it  that  I  have  never  been  able  to  study  individual 
boys  as  I  could  wish.  One  ought  to  have  very  definite  im- 
pressions about  the  boys  one  teaches  and  one  might  learn  a 
great  deal  about  them  if  one  was  on  the  look-out.  The  whist 
books  estimate  all  a  player  can  find  out  about  the  hands  of 
the  other  players  from  observing  the  cards  that  flxll.  If  anyone 
were  sharp  enough  to  do  this  always  he  would  seem  to  the 
uninitiated  a  conjuror.  In  the  same  way  we  might  learn  an 
astonishing  amount  about  our  boys  if  we  knew  what  to  look 
for  and  were  always  on  the  look-out.  Cf.  Coiiingsby,  cap.  iii. 
ad  fin.  on  men's  ignorance  of  boys'  minds." 

Masters'  Meeting.     Exercise  books 

"Last  night  (Nov.  5,  1874)  we  had  a  Masters'  Meeting  of 
more  importance  than  usual,  for  at  it  the  school  bill  was  cut 
down  from  five  minutes  to  two.  There  was  a  discussion  about 
Arnold's  Exercises  a  propos  of  a  scheme  of  Rivington's.  These 
discussions  do  not  impress  one  favourably  with  the  wisdom  of 
schoolmasters,  or  rather  with  their  professional  knowledge. 
The  talk  amounted  just  to  this,  that  some  people  thought 
Arnold's  books  good,  and  some  thought  them  bad,  that 
some  masters  used  them,  and  some  didn't,  but  nobody  knew 


54  ^.  H.  Quid' 

anything  of  the  practice  of  the  other  forms.  The  only  thing  like 
a  divergence  on  principle  was  that  some  men  held  that  exercise 
books  were  bad  things  altogether,  and  that  connected  pieces  of 
prose  should  be  set,  while  others  maintained  that  without 
text-books  teaching  gets  desultory  ;  but  nobody  had  anything 
to  judge  from  except  the  practice  which  he  himself  had 
happened  to  adopt." 

Neatness 

"  A  school  inspector  has  said  that  neatness  in  a  school  is 
capable  of  any  amount  of  cultivation.  Most  people  seem  to 
think  it  an  idiosyncrasy,  and  to  some  extent  it  is,  but  by 
comparing  school  with  school  it  will  be  found  that  in  the 
matter  of  neatness  the  influence  of  the  master  shows  itself 
more  conspicuously  than  in  anything  else.  And  neatness  is 
of  immense  value  and  every  boy  should  be  trained  to  it. 
Here  however,  and  I  suppose  in  most  public  schools,  neatness 
seems  entirely  neglected.  Several  things  help  to  produce  this 
neglect.  The  masters  have  too  much  to  do  and  too  many 
boys  to  attend  to,  to  take  thought  for  it.  Then  a  boy  is  not 
more  than  13  or  at  most  26  weeks  with  a  master,  and  as  there 
is  no  agreement  on  such  points,  if  an  individual  master  were  to 
worry  himself  about  the  neatness  of  the  work,  he  would  just 
when  he  was  licking  a  boy  into  shape  lose  him  and  get  another 
to  begin  again  with.  Moreover  he  would  know  that  any  neat- 
ness a  boy  had  learnt  with  him  would  be  lost  again  in  the  form 
above.  Besides,  some  men  require  such  large  quantities  to  be 
written  that  scribbling  must  be  the  result.  One  of  the  French 
masters  requires  each  boy  to  bring  a  written  transkation  of  all 
the  construing,  which  translation  is  ?!ez>er  corrected.  Then  too 
there  is  much  writing  for  punishment.  The  house  tutors  should 
do  something  in  the  matter,  but  they  have  too  much  to  do  and 
must  scramble  along  anyhow.  The  consequences  seem  to  me 
deplorable." 


Coujinnation  55 


Confirmation 

"  I  have  lately  been  seeing  some  boys  for  confirmation.  I 
wish  I  felt  'drawn  towards  them,'  but  though  I  really  desire 
to  benefit  them  I  feel  little  confidence  in  my  power  of  doing 
it.  I  should  doubt  if  X.  is  very  successful.  Having  himself  a 
marvellous  power  of  expression,  he  overestimates  the  power  in 
boys.  He  gives  them  questions  to  answer — some  of  them 
very  difficult  ones,  as  to  expose  the  fallacy  in  the  lines  :  — 

'  For  forms  and  creeds  let  senseless  bigots  fight ; 
He  can't  be  wrong  whose  life  is  in  the  riglit.' 

On  such  topics  boys  have  no  thoughts  :  they  will  reproduce 
anything  they  are  told,  and  if  they  are  sharp  boys  the  thought 
may  look  like  their  own,  but  it  isn't  really.  When  the  boys 
are  dull  the  effort  at  reproduction  leads  to  unfortunate  results. 
E.  M.  Young  set  as  a  question,  '  Give  instances  of  the  ways  in 
which  God  is  our  father.'  One  boy  said,  '  He  was  made  in  our 
image,'  and  when  Young  pointed  out  that  the  answer  would  not 
do,  the  boy  gravely  asserted,  '  That's  what  you  said.' 

"  What  I  have  endeavoured  to  do  is  to  put  before  boys  as 
simply  as  possible  some  of  the  truths  which  seem  to  me  to 
have  the  most  practical  value  in  life.  These  are  conveyed  by 
such  words  as,  '  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God.'  '  Watch.' 
'  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive.'  '  He  that  will  be 
great  among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant.'  The  parable  of 
the  Talents.  The  figure  of  the  Vine.  If  one  could  get  only 
one  of  these  great  principles  of  life  received  into  a  boy's  mind, 
and  get  him  to  try  to  apply  it,  this  would  affect  him  in  every- 
thing. But  it  is  so  difficult  to  feel  the  truths  one  is  uttering, 
and  unless  one  feels  them  there  is  little  chance  of  one's  hearers 
feeling  them.  The  intellectual  act  goes  for  very  little  in  such 
matters,  and  yet  this  is  all  one  seems  capable  of." 


R.  H.  Otiick 


A  Public  School  Incident 

"  Here  is  a  story  of '  how  not  to  do  it '  in  managing  a  public 
school.  X.  is  a  slippery  customer  whom  the  headmaster 
decides  on  sending  away.  The  boy's  guardian  intercedes,  the 
headmaster  gives  way  and  says  if  the  boy  is  taken  home  till 
the  end  of  the  half  he  may  reappear  and  the  headmaster  will 
'  take  leave  '  of  him.  The  boy  is  told  this  and  says,  '  All 
right,  the  headmaster  has  promised  to  take  leave  of  me.  I'm 
not  sent  and  shan't  go,'  and  stays  accordingly.  The  head- 
master tells  him  the  next  offence  will  be  his  last.  This 
happens  in  the  form  of  cutting  a  school  soon  after.  Verses 
were  collected  at  this  school  and  the  praepostor  being  in  league 
with  the  absentee  asserted  that  he  had  been  at  school :  but  in 
that  case  where  were  the  verses  ?  X.  gets  a  boy  in  the  house 
of  his  form  master  to  steal  a  copy  of  verses  out  of  the  same 
set  and  these  together  with  X.'s  verses  are  put  in  the  form 
master's  waste-paper  basket.  X.  tries  to  get  the  form  master 
to  search  for  these  verses,  but  the  form  master  is  wary  and  won't. 
He  then  gets  his  tutor  to  go  to  the  form  master  and  ask  to  see 
the  sets  of  verses  and  count  them.  T^uo  sets  are  found  wanting, 
so  the  tutor  urges  that  X.'s  have  been  lost  with  another  set. 
Still  the  form  master  refuses  to  withdraw  the  charge  of  absence, 
and  X.  gets  six  boys  to  come  forward  and  say  that  he  was  in 
school.  The  headmaster  then  says  the  charge  against  him 
has  broken  down  and  X.  goes  about  bragging  how  he  has 
'done'  the  headmaster." 

Teachers  unimprovable 

"  In  our  hopes  of  general  improvement  we  fluctuate  through 
a  large  angle.  At  first  we  expect  to  find  everyone  bent 
on  self-improvement ;  but  in  the  end  it  forces  itself  upon 
us  that  everyone  hates  the  notion  of  improvement.  To  take 
a  trifling  instance.     When  I  went  to  Harrow  in   1870  I  found 


Conservatism  of  Schools  57 

that  though  there  were  nearly  600  boys  in  the  school,  there 
was  no  way  of  findhig  out  easily  what  house  or  form  or  pupil- 
room  a  boy  belonged  to.  I  therefore  proposed  the  publication 
of  an  alphabetical  list.  Most  men  declared  it  would  be  quite 
useless,  and  if  I  had  only  recommended  I  might  have  gone  on 
recommending  till  now.  But  I  made  a  list  and  printed  it,  and 
now  the  plan  has  been  adopted  with  little  change  by  Rugby, 
Marlborough,  Haileybury  and  Cranleigh.  As  for  John  Smith 
he  declares  the  '  blue  book  '  of  the  greatest  daily  use  to  him. 
.  .  .  Not  only  do  the  taught  suffer  from  this  humdrum  routinism  ; 
the  teachers  suffer  at  least  as  much.  Nothing  gives  more 
pleasure  than  the  sense  that  one  is  improving.  '  How  dull  it 
is  to  pause,  to  make  an  end  '  of  all  effort  to  do  better  and  to 
go  on  day  after  day  living  the  '  unexamined  life  '  which  it  is 
not  good  to  live  !  Directly  the  hope  of  improvement  goes, 
life  loses  one  of  its  main  interests.  To  me  school  work  has 
never  been  dull  or  monotonous,  because  I  have  always  felt 
that  it  might  be  well  done,  and  that  though  I  was  not  doing 
it  as  it  should  be  done,  I  was  improving.  Books  about  teach- 
ing have  always  been  welcome  to  me  because  they  took  my 
life  up  into  a  clearer  and  brighter  atmosphere  where  one  could 
examine  it  properly.  These  books  gave  me  a  notion  of  the 
possibilities  of  my  calling.  Besides  it  is  pleasant  to  compare 
one's  own  experiences  with  those  of  other  people  and  see 
whether  others  have  met  with  the  same  difficulties,  and  if  so 
how  they  have  got  over  them.  But  it  seems  our  English 
teachers  absolutely  refuse  to  look  at  books  about  their  work. 
Each  man  prefers  to  strike  out  his  own  methods  or  to  go  on  in 
those  of  his  own  school-days  and  doesn't  want  to  know  about 
other  people's.  Laurie  has  started  a  lending  library  for 
teachers,  and  in  the  first  year  about  six  people  availed  them- 
selves of  it.  Dr  Donaldson  published  a  valuable  volume  of 
lectures,  and  lost  a  lot  of  money  over  it.  Nobody  wants  such 
wares.  Even  a  rea<lable  and  popular  book  like  D'Arcy 
Thompson's  Day  Dreams  is  not  in  demand.     The  first  edition 


58  R.  H.  Quick 

is  now  sold  out  and  the  publishers  will  not  risk  a  new  one. 
If  a  book  were  published  showing  how  teachers  could  add 
5  per  cent,  to  their  incomes,  the  whole  profession  would  read 
it  as  one  man,  but  if  a  book  only  shows  the  teacher  how  he 
may  work  with  more  interest  and  pleasure  to  himself  and 
more  profit  to  his  pupils,  nobody  cares  to  look  at  it.  The 
natural  consequence  of  the  teachers'  carelessness  is  that  they 
adopt  the  ordinary  school  books  and  use  them  constantly 
whether  they  are  good  or  bad.  So  there  is  no  demand  for 
good  books,  no  objection  to  bad.  If  a  book  has  anyhow  got 
into  use  it  goes  on  and  prospers  like  jNIorell's  Graini/iar.'" 

Autobiog7-aphy 

"  Generally  speaking  I  infer  that  what  I  write  is  from  some 
cause  or  other  by  no  means  treffend.  Yet  an  odd  thing  has 
just  happened  about  an  article  I  wrote  at  Robertson's  sugges- 
tion for  the  Daily  News  on  Literature  in  Primary  Schools. 
The  article  referred  to  a  letter  which  was  to  appear  on  the 
same  day.  In  a  week  or  so  the  letter  came  out,  but  not  the 
leader.  I  therefore  sent  the  article  somewhat  altered  to  the 
Monthly  Journal.  Some  weeks  after  it  had  appeared  there  it 
came  out  in  the  Daily  News.  Finally  I  take  up  the  Scholastic 
Advertiser,  June  i,  and  find  in  it  my  Daily  News  article,  now 
some  months  old,  given  vei'batim  as  an  original  article.  The 
only  change  is  that  '  a  correspondent  in  our  columns  '  becomes 
'  a  correspondent  in  a  contemporary.'  " 

Autobiography.     Estimate  of  his  own  style.     A  letter  sent 
to  the  '  Times  '  not  having  been  inserted 

"  Nobody  ever  says  what  he  really  thinks  of  himself  even  to 
his  most  intimate  friend  ;  he  always  takes  off  a  large  discount 
before  he  says  anything  in  his  own  favour.  I]ut  I  don't  know 
why  one  should  be  sliy  in  writing  for  one's  own  future  infor- 
mation ;  so  without  discount  I  may  say  that  I  think  my  letters 


Leaving  Harroiv  59 

fairly  clear,  sensible,  and  to  the  point.  They  are  always  very 
carefully  and  (as  I  think)  correctly  worded,  and  I  should  say 
they  never  are  wordy.  On  the  other  hand  I  am  quite  aware 
that  there  is  no  flow  about  them,  nothing  to  carry  the  reader 
along  or  excite  him  in  any  way.  Of  course  my  writing  is 
totally  without  the  charm  one  finds  in  J.  H.  Newman  &c.,  and 
I  have  none  of  the  attractiveness  that  some  people  find  in 
diffuse  writers  such  as  A.  K.  H.  B.  and  Moncrieff.  It  hangs 
fire  and  is  never  more  than  sensible.  I  much  regret  that  I  have 
let  routine  work  so  consume  my  time  and  energies  that  since  I 
was  very  young  I  have  not  studied  good  English  prose  writers 
as  I  should  have  done.  Charm  is  a  matter  of  genius,  but  one 
may  catch  something  of  the  excellence  of  the  writers  with 
whom  one  is  familiar.  When  I  wrote  the  Educational  Reformer 
Essays  I  had  sometimes  great  difficulty  in  expressing  myself. 
Since  then  I  have  scribbled  so  much  either  for  tho.  Journal  of 
Education  or  in  these  books  that  I  am  not  now  often  at  a  loss 
for  words  that  will  form  a  tolerable  sentence ;  but  the  sentence 
is  apt  to  be  a  flat  one." 

At  the  end  of  the  Midsummer  Term  1S74,  Quick  resigned 
the  mastership  at  Harrow  which  he  had  held  for  not  quite  four 
years.  The  proximate  cause  of  his  retirement  was  ill  health. 
Headaches  increased  in  frequency,  and  he  grew  more  and  more 
oppressed  with  the  daily  drudgery  of  exercises  and  school 
routine,  and  the  sense  of  accumulating  arrears  which  he  was 
unable  to  overtake.  Fortunately  he  had  not  to  take  into  con- 
sideration the  bread-and-butter  question,  but  it  is  not  every 
man  who  would  have  thrown  up  a  certain  competence  and  the 
prospect  of  comparative  affluence  without  any  external  press- 
ure, and  solely  because  he  felt  himself  temporarily  unable  to 
fulfil  to  his  own  satisfaction  all  the  duties  that  fell  to  his  share. 
The  ordinary  course  in  such  a  case  is  to  ask  for  some  alleviation 
of  work,  or  to  engage  a  substitute  and  try  the  effect  of  a  pro- 
longed holiday.  This  was  not  Quick's  way.  To  money-making 
he  was  absolutely  indifferent,  and  with  his  innate  modesty  he 


6o  R.  H.  Q^iick 

settled  that  his  place  would  easily  be  filled  by  others  intellectu- 
ally his  equals  and  physically  stronger  and  more  competent. 
Yet  it  was  not  without  a  wrench  that  he  quitted  a  place  where 
he  had  made  some  of  his  closest  friendships,  and  which  to  the 
end  of  his  life  he  regarded  with  heartfelt  affection.  His  deci- 
sion was  undoubtedly  a  wise  one,  and  his  Harrow  friends  and 
colleagues  might  have  applied  to  him  Juvenal's  farewell  greeting, 

'  Ouamvis  digressu  veteris  turbatus  amici, 
Laudo  tamen.' 

His  parts  were  too  solid,  and  he  lacked  the  versatility  and 
nimbleness  of  wit  that  are  needed  for  a  successful  public  school- 
master. He  had  not  a  free  hand  to  apply  the  pedagogic 
axioms  which  had  been  borne  in  on  him  by  study  and  reflec- 
tion, still  less  was  he  at  liberty  to  try  those  experiments  in 
teaching  which  were  constantly  suggesting  themselves  to  a 
mind  which  was  by  nature  both  critical  and  sanguine. 

It  is  a  favourite  argument  with  educational  obscurantists  to 
point  to  the  failure  or  very  moderate  success  of  the  educational 
reformers  in  the  practical  work  of  schoolmastering.  They  point 
to  Mulcaster,  compelled  to  resign  his  headmastership  of  Mer- 
chant Taylors'  School ;  to  Milton,  whose  private  venture  school 
at  Aldgate  was  reduced  to  the  vanishing  point  of  two  nephews  ; 
to  Pestalozzi,  whose  Institute  at  Yverdun  became  a  bear- 
garden ;  to  more  modern  instances,  which  it  would  be  invidious 
to  specify ;  and  they  think  that  they  have  hoist  the  engineer 
with  his  own  petard  and  proved  the  superiority  of  the  wisdom 
of  the  ancients  to  new-fangled  notions,  of  practical  common- 
sense  to  theoretic  speculation.  Let  us  for  the  sake  of  argument 
admit  the  premise,  the  conclusion  by  no  means  follows.  All 
Art  must  ultimately  rest  on  theory,  but  the  great  theorist  is  not 
necessarily  a  great  artist.  Because  inventors  rarely  succeed  in 
making  their  own  fortunes,  it  does  not  prove  that  their  inven- 
tions are  naught.  When  Browning  asks,  '  What  porridge  had 
John  Keats?'  he  does  not  intend  to  question  Keats's  claim  to 


A  Harroiu  Colleague  6i 

rank  as  a  poet,  or  to  imply  that  Noakes  and  Stokes  would  have 
written  equally  good  poetry  had  Keats  never  lived.  The  ex- 
plorer is  more  likely  to  come  to  grief  than  the  plodder  who 
keeps  to  the  beaten  track,  but  it  is  only  '  the  saucy  Thracian 
wench '  that  makes  fun  of  the  star-gazing  philosopher  who  falls 
into  a  well. 

Quick  was  not  a  teacher  to  the  manner  born  as  were  his 
contemporaries  Dr  Kennedy,  Dean  Bradley,  Professor  Bonamy 
Price,  but  he  had  faith  in  his  high  calling  and  profession  which 
{t.\^  of  his  generation  shared,  and  by  help  of  that  faith  '  out  of 
weakness  he  was  made  strong.'  Painfully  conscious  of  his  own 
shortcomings,  recording  and  analysing  them  in  the  hope  that 
they  might  serve  as  stepping-stones  to  future  generations  of 
teachers,  too  clear-sighted  to  be  imposed  upon  by  convention- 
alities, too  sanguine  of  the  possible  attainments  of  training  and 
culture  to  acquiesce  in  the  traditional  routine  and  respectable 
conservatism  of  English  public  schools,  and  too  honest  and 
fearless  to  conceal  his  discontent,  he  was  naturally  no  prophet 
in  his  own  country,  but  he  has  won  a  lasting  place  among 
"  Educational  reformers,"  and  can  safely  appeal  to  the  verdict 
of  posterity  from  the  half-patronizing,  half-contemptuous  esti- 
mate of  his  practical  colleagues,  who  regarded  him  as  an  ami- 
able but  ineffectual  dreamer. 

The  impression  that  he  left  on  his  Harrow  colleages  is 
faithfully  rendered  in  the  obituary  notice  of  his  colleague  and 
commensalis  Mr  G.  H.  Hallam,  and  the  Recollections  written 
at  my  request  by  his  headmaster  for  \}c\^  Journal  of  Education. 
The  few  personal  traits  so  delicately  and  feelingly  rendered  by 
Dr  Butler,  though  not  immediately  connected  with  school  life, 
will  not  be  deemed  inapposite  :  — 

You  have  asked  me  to  send  you  a  few  words  in  memory  of  Mr 
R.  H.  Quick.  To  criticise  so  old  and  so  dear  a  friend  is  quite  be- 
yond me.  It  will  be  enough  if  I  can  say  two  or  three  things  that 
may  help  to  bring  back  his  image  to  the  many  friends  who  loved  him. 

He  joined  us  at  Harrow,  as  a  Master,  at  my  request,  soon  after 


62  R.  H.  Qicick 

we  began  our  ''Modern  Side."  His  special  work  was  to  teach 
German,  which  he  had  mastered  tlioroughly  abroad,  but  it  was  by 
no  means  Hmited  to  this.  His  knowledge  of  Mathematics  and  his 
love  for  EngHsh  Literature  were  all  turned  to  account. 

I  never  myself  heard  him  give  a  lesson,  and  I  am  not, certain 
that  he  was  specially  made  to  be  a  great  teacher  in  a  large  school, 
but  he  was  beyond  doubt  an  invaluable  companion  of  other  teachers. 
His  affectionate  brotherly  ways,  his  instinctive  sympathy,  his  readi- 
ness to  receive  as  well  as  to  give  help,  his  sturdy  common  sense, 
his  "many-twinkling  smile"  of  humour,  his  quiet  enjoyment  of 
being  quizzed  by  friends  who,  he  knew,  loved  and  respected  him  — 
these  human  gifts,  added  to  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of  the  very 
few  men  who  had  made  a  scientific  study  of  the  history  and  princi- 
ples of  education  abroad  and  at  home,  gave  to  his  companionship 
at  School  a  unique  worth. 

Pedantry  in  some  form  is,  I  suppose  —  anyhow  our  friends 
suppose  it  for  us  —  "the  badge  of  all  our  tribe."  Pedantry  and 
Quick  had  no  point  of  contact.  Anything  pedantic  was  out  of 
place,  and,  we  may  hope,  out  of  countenance,  in  his  presence. 
Exaggeration  of  boyish  faults,  undue  brooding  over  passing  fric- 
tions between  attached  colleagues,  the  7'ultt/s  co/npositus  of  offended 
dignity,  extreme  consistency  for  consistency's  sake  —  alike  by  his 
instincts  and  his  studies  he  had  got  behind  and  beyond  all  those 
north  winds  of  school  life.  And  then  he  was  so  genial  and  so 
brotherly  that  his  colleagues,  who  gladly  admitted  him  to  their 
confidence,  could  not  but  be  wrought  upon  and  "  dulcified "  by 
his  cheery  kindly  judgments. 

A  word  should  be  said  about  his  sermons  in  the  School  Chapel. 
They  were  in  many  ways  S2ii  generis.  I  always  looked  forward  to 
them,  and  always  enjoyed  them.  They  hardly  ever  lasted  a  quarter 
of  an  hour.  He  used  to  declare  that  he  could  not  find  matter  for 
so  protracted  an  ordeal ;  yet  his  mind,  far  from  being  meagre  or 
barren,  was  running  over  with  theories,  and  protests,  and  fresh 
views  of  life,  and  most  genuine  affection.  But  to  put  such  thoughts 
and  such  feelings  into  shape  was  a  labour  which  he  unfeignedly 
dreaded.  Once  written,  the  sermons  were  well  worth  hearing. 
They  were  the  talk  of  a  kindly  elder  brother,  by  no  means  pre- 
suming on  his  primogeniture,  speaking  seriously,  but  perhaps  a 
little  too  diffidently,  to  young  people  whom  he  greatly  liked   and 


A  Harrow  Colleague  63 

thoroughly  believed  in.  They  were  delivered  with  a  sort  of  confi- 
dential nod  of  the  head,  and  a  little  pause  after  each  telling  sen- 
tence, as  much  as  to  deprecate  any  undue  value  for  the  preacher's 
opinion  :  "  You  surely  won't  believe  that,  simply  because  /  tell  it 
you."  This  is  not,  I  believe,  the  traditional  eloquence  of  great 
preachers,  but  it  was  eloquence  in  its  way  —  the  outcome  of  great 
humbleness  and  transparent  simplicity.  One  of  his  sermons  spe- 
cially comes  back  to  me,  characteristic  alike  in  tone  and  matter. 
It  was  on  the  difference  between  Godliness  and  Religiousness. 
Those  who  knew  our  dear  friend  will  easily  guess  to  which  of  the 
two  characters  he  gave  the  palm,  and  perhaps  can  almost  see  him 
jerking  out  the  short  crisp  paragraphs  in  which  they  were  severally 
commended  or  dispraised. 

His  sermons  did  not  show  anything  like  the  full  intellectual 
power  of  the  man  —  his  wide  study,  his  independent  thought,  his 
ripe  wisdom  —  but  they  showed  much  that  was  most  winning  and 
delightful  in  him,  his  piety,  his  kindliness,  and,  as  I  have  implied 
above,  his  quite  exceptional  simplicity.  It  was  this  simplicity  and 
benevolence  which  made  him  such  a  hero  with  children.  With 
them  he  was  seen  at  his  best.  There  must  be  not  a  few  young 
people  now  living  between  20  and  30,  in  different  parts  of  the 
world,  whose  memories  of  nursery  life  will  go  back  gratefully  to  his 
magical  visits.  Whatever  he  may  have  been  in  School,  in  Council, 
in  the  Pulpit,  in  his  books,  in  travelling,  in  Switzerland,  at  Co- 
blentz,  at  Heidelberg — and  every  one  of  these  words  will  call  up  affec- 
tionate recollections  to  some  at  least  of  his  friends  — there  was  one 
region  of  the  earth  in  which  he  reigned  supreme,  and  that  was  the 
nursery  floor  or  the  drawing-room  rug.  There,  rolling  about  with 
a  whole  swarm  of  happy  children  buzzing  and  settling  upon  him. 
and  taking  most  unpedantic  liberties  with  his  long  and  long-suffering 
beard,  he  looked  the  very  genius  of  good-nature.  In  truth  he 
dearly  loved  young  children.  They  were  present  to  him  as  he 
wrote  his  books,  as  he  preached  his  sermons,  as  he  chatted  on 
Education  with  his  friends  and  colleagues.  They  coloured  his 
personal  religion,  and  inspired  his  professional  efforts  after  educa- 
tional reforms.  Firmly  believing  in  their  intuitions,  their  poetry, 
and  the  preciousness  of  their  fresh  immaturity,  he  could  not  bear 
that  they  should  be  "  offended  "  by  rigid  systems  of  training  which 
seemed  to  him  to  force  and  cramp  and  materialise,  under  the  guise 


64  R.  H.  Quick 

and  in  the  names  of  discipline  or  uniformity  or  competition.  Had 
he  ever  needed,  as  some  good  men  reluctantly  need,  a  volume  of 
personal  testimonials,  many  pages  should  have  been  left  vacant  for 
their  inarticulate  but  emphatic  commendations. 

Some  years  ago  I  remember  receiving  a  letter  from  Archbishop 
Tait,  who  was  thinking  of  offering  him  some  small  living.  I  sent 
the  good  Archbishop  an  official  testimonial,  but  I  added  another  of 
a  different  kind,  which  was  not  intended  to  be  filed  and  pigeon- 
holed in  the  archives  of  Lambeth. 

It  told  how  two  young  children  at  Harrow,  a  brother  and  sister, 
not  very  far  back  in  this  century,  had  caught  a  live  mouse  in  a 
trap.  What  should  they  do  with  it  ?  Servants,  kindly  but  conven- 
tional, wished  to  drown  their  hereditary  enemy.  "Not  to  be 
thought  of,"  said  the  children.  Might  they  turn  him  loose  in  the 
garden  ?     "  Not  to  be  thought  of,"  said  the  gardener. 

Thus  bafifled  by  the  uninventiveness  of  their  natural  leaders,  the 
young  philosophers  had  to  fall  back  on  first  principles.  "  Who  was 
the  kindest  man  in  Harrow  ? "  Kind  friends  in  Harrow  were  never 
few,  but  the  premiership  was  not  doubtful.  They  plumped  for  Mr 
Quick,  and  marched  straight  to  his  house,  meaning  to  commend 
the  poor  trembling  mouse  to  his  care;  but  finding  the  kindest  of 
men  out,  they  let  loose  the  little  prisoner  in  his  drawing-room,  and 
came  back  gleefully  down  the  hill,  swinging  the  empty  trap,  nowise 
doubting  that  the  educational  future  of  this  ''  waif  and  stray  "  was 
abundantly  secured.  Could  the  good  Vicar  of  Wakefield  himself 
have  desired  a  more  eloquent  testimonial  ? 

You,  Sir,  may  perhaps  think  that  such  a  story  is  hardly  fitted 
for  an  august  J oicrnal  of  Education,  but  you  will  know  that  it  is  at 
least  characteristic  of  the  friend  whom  we  have  lost.  He  would 
have  shaken  his  head  over  it,  more  siio,  but  not  in  disapproval,  much 
less  in  contempt. 

For  myself,  I  shall  never  read  his  writings,  or  stand  beside  his 
grave,  or  think  of  those  whom  he  has  left  behind,  without  a  grateful 
memory  of  this  little  incident  of  happy  bygone  days,  days  which 
owed  not  a  little  of  their  happiness  to  his  unfailing  loyalty  and 
affection. 


Marriage  65 

Clearing  the  decks 

"  I  have  spent  to-day  in  turning  over  books  and  papers  and 
condemning  large  quantities,  but  things  wachsen  iiber  den  Kopf. 
And  yet  I  hate  confusion,  and  when  I  am  well  I  struggle  hard 
against  it.  But  I  am  always  looking  forward  to  the  time  when 
I  shall  be  able  to  study  this  or  that,  and  I  accumulate  materials, 
as  David  did  for  the  building  of  the  Temple,  though  in  fact 
there  is  little  chance  of  my  ever  using  it  myself  or  finding  a 
Solomon. 

"  Vivre  de  pen  was  Cobbett's  maxim  ;  '  Live  with  little  ' 
would  be  mine.  Everything  one  owns  turns  up  at  some  time  or 
other  and  demands  a  billet,  and  one  becomes  a  mere  quarter- 
master-general to  one's  own  property.  Sometimes  in  an  evil  hour 
one  subscribes  to  a  periodical  or  a  book  that  comes  out  in  num- 
bers or  to  a  society  that  keeps  sending  one  its  publications.  These 
things  keep  coming  and  coming  till  they  almost  oust  one  from 
one's  own  rooms.  By  degrees  one  gets  to  hate  the  sight  of 
them,  and  I  now  often  'go  for'  one  of  them  when  it  appears 
and  fling  it  into  the  waste-paper  basket  as  eagerly  as  one 
crushes  a  wasp.  This  last  simile,  by  the  way,  is  not  strong 
enough.  I  know  perfectly  well  that  a  wasp  will  make  its  way 
out  again  if  I  take  no  notice  of  it,  so  ich  lass''  sic  gewahren,  but 
a  paper  will  never  take  itself  off  (unless  one  happens  to  want 
it),  but  will  obtrude  itself  again  and  again  till  one  is  driven  wild 
by  its  pert  '  Now  then,  where  am  I  to  go  ? '  " 

His  notion  on  leaving  Harrow  was  to  start  a  preparatory 
school.  Fondness  for  children  was  one  of  the  most  marked 
traits  of  his  character,  and  he  was  keen  to  try  his  own  methods 
of  teaching  without  let  or  hindrance.  He  hoped  too  in  this 
way  to  get  again  some  leisure  for  reading  and  writing,  the  loss 
of  which  was  the  main  crook  in  his  lot  at  Harrow.  He  was 
however  in  no  hurry  to  put  himself  into  harness  again,  and  two 
years  elapsed  before  his  plan  was  carried  out. 

In  this  interval  occurred  what  he  describes  as  the  grand 

F 


66  R.  H.  Quick 

climacteric  of  his  life,  his  marriage  with  Bertha,  daughter  of 
General  Parr  and  sister  of  Lieutenant  Parr,  of  Arctic  celebrity. 
On  all  other  subjects  the  Diaries  are  a  Journal  in  time.  As  to 
his  loves  and  hates,  his  aspirations  and  failures,  his  religious 
beliefs  and  doubts,  there  is  no  reserve  or  reticence,  but  to  his 
married  life  there  is  hardly  an  allusion.  It  would  be  presumpt- 
uous for  an  editor  to  attempt  to  fill  in  this  gap ;  but  for  the 
sake  of  those  readers  who  know  nothing  of  Quick  personally,  it 
may  be  well  to  state  that  he  found  in  his  wife  a  perfect  help- 
mate, that  no  cloud  ever  ruffled  the  serenity  of  his  wedded 
happiness,  and  that  his  silence  is  indicative  of  feelings  too 
intense  and  sacred  for  utterance.  The  Note-books  contain 
but  one  reference  to  his  engagement,  and  that  by  way  of  covert 
allusion. 

"  The  great  division  of  my  life  comes  between  the  last  entry 
and  this.  '  Gefiihl  ist  alles '  wrote  Goethe.  This  seems  the 
literal  truth  at  some  seasons,  and  our  ordinary  life  is  no  doubt 
so  mean  because  it  is  so  unfeeling.     We  see 

'  The  inanimate  cold  world  allowed 
To  the  poor  loveless  ever-anxious  crowd.' 

"  In  my  late  experience  I  have  observed  how  the  mind  when 
touched  by  feeling  naturally  has  recourse  to  known  forms  of 
expression.  Hence  the  value  and  comfort  of  good  hymns, 
good  not  perhaps  from  a  literary  point  of  view,  but  good  as 
expressing  genuine  feeling. 

"The  remarkable  thing  about  the  emotionless  life  is  that  its 
condition  seems  so  stationary.  One  allows  one's  self  to  be 
buried  beneath  a  heap  of  routine,  one  gets  no  glimpses  of  the 
universe  around  and  above  one  ;  one's  interests  are  all  of  the 
pettiest  kind,  and  in  this  state  one  goes  on  with  no  perceptible 
change.  A  loss  comes  and  one's  usual  habits  of  thought  and 
one's  usual  interests  are  broken  in  upon.  The  fountains  of  the 
deep  are  stirred.  One  gets  a  consciousness  oi  Beatus  qui  in- 
telligit  (Ps.  xli.  i). 


Orme  Square  67 

"  April,  '76.  —  General Pai-r's  Bickley.  After  all,  reading  and 
writing  do  not  seem  the  Kej-nbeschaftigungeii  of  our  lives.  I 
hav'nt  made  a  note  in  this  book  since  the  most  important  date 
in  my  life  the  3rd  of  Feb.  last  [his  wedding-day].  How  little 
we  see  of  life  at  a  time  !  Our  view  is  dioramic  and  we  can 
hardly  remember  what  we  just  before  saw  so  distinctly." 

In  the  summer  of  1876  he  purchased  the  good-will  of  a 
small  preparatory  school  which  had  been  started  a  few  years 
previously  in  Orme  Square,  Bayswater,  by  Mr  Meiklejohn, 
afterwards  Professor  of  Education  in  the  University  of  St 
Andrews.  The  numbers  had  never  been  above  twenty,  and 
during  the  four  years  that  Quick  carried  on  the  school  they 
never  grew  but  rather  showed  a  tendency  to  decrease.  Sur- 
prising as  this  ill  success  may  seem  with  a  man  of  such  special 
qualifications,  the  explanation  is  simple.  Quick  was  utterly 
deficient  in  the  art  of  '  push.'  So  far  from  advertising  himself 
he  seemed  partly  from  over-scrupulousness,  partly  from  innate 
modesty,  to  take  a  perverse  pleasure  in  depreciating  his  wares. 
To  a  parent  who  came  with  a  sickly  child,  he  would  point  out 
the  unsuitableness  of  London  air  for  delicate  constitutions.  If 
a  clever  boy  outshot  his  fellows,  he  would  advise  his  removal  to 
a  larger  school  where  he  would  find  the  stimulus  of  competition  ; 
if  a  boy  proved  dull  or  lazy,  he  would  suggest  trying  the  effect 
of  a  fresh  start  elsewhere.  Of  this  reason  of  failure  he  was 
himself  only  half  aware,  and  was  often  inclined  to  set  it  down 
to  his  own  incapacity.  In  a  moment  of  depression  he  writes  — 
"  1 6  June,  '77.  Numbers  at  lecture  small,  numbers  in  school 
ditto.  Ready  to  throw  everything  up.  When  a  man  does 
not  believe  in  himself,  he  must  not  expect  other  people  to 
believe  in  him." 

"  II,  Orme  Square,  3  Nov.  '76.  —  I  have  now  been  in  this 
house  six  weeks  to-morrow  and  shall  have  finished  my  first  six 
weeks  of  a  day-school.  I  have  already  found  the  usual  diffi- 
culties as  to  manner.  One  begins  with  a  cheerful  kindly 
manner  and  liking  one's  boys  extremely.     By  degrees  one  loses 


68  •         R.  H.  Quick 

this  manner  and  the  boys  seem  to  lose  some  of  their  charm. 
Then  comes  the  official  manner,  the  chief  object  of  which  is 
repression.  In  some  ways  my  boys  are  quite  as  good  as  I 
expected,  better  even.  They  are  very  bright  and  keen  on  their 
work.  Their  minds  seem  acute  and  active  with  a  vengeance. 
The  chief  difficulty  is  to  keep  them  to  the  matter  in  hand.  If 
one  allows  questions,  the  boys  will  ask  first  something  con- 
nected with  the  subject,  then  something  connected  with  that, 
and  so  on  ad  infinituviy 

Leisure,  Study,  Interest 

"  One  of  the  untruest  things  I  know  is  Bacon's  assertion  that 
we  are  sure  to  find  time  for  what  we  like.  I  do  intensely  hke 
study,  and  yet  I  hardly  ever  open  a  book.  The  reason  is  that 
I  cannot  escape  from  the  regular  Enghsh  (and  Greek?)  notion 
that  study  is  leisure.  So  I  go  on  through  the  desert  of  trivial 
employments,  always  hoping  that  an  oasis  will  show  itself  soon, 
but  it  never  does.  When  I  have  been  totally  free  from  other 
employments  I  have  studied  with  some  vigour  and  intense 
pleasure.  At  \Vestbourne  I  ground  at  Justin  Martyr  and  Ter- 
tuUian,  and  during  the  time  I  was  at  work  on  my  Essays  I 
worked  steadily  for  ten  hours  a  day.  And  yet  I  now  get  into 
the  whirr  of  small  occupations  and  never  find  time  for  reading 
or  thought.  This  evening  I  have  read  with  delight  the  Essay 
on  the  Education  of  a  Prince  among  some  Port  Royal  Essays, 
translated  by  a  person  of  quality.  In  reading  a  good  book  one 
feels  surprised  at  the  intellectual  life  which  is  suddenly  revealed 
to  us.  There  has  been  little  in  my  notes  lately,  for  I  never 
think.  ...  I  have  remarked  somewhere  in  my  notes  that 
the  mind  gets  accustomed  to  difficulties  of  long  standing 
and  finds  some  modus  viveiidi  with  them.  At  first  a  difficulty 
strikes  one,  say  a  religious  difficulty,  and  makes  one  very  un- 
easy. It  seems  altogether  destructive  of  much  in  our  belief 
which  is  essential  to  us.  But  we  go  on  for  a  year  or  two  and 
the  difficulty  does  not  distress  us,  and  yet  we  have  given  up 


Leisure,  st7tdy,  interest  69 

nothing  for  it,  and  have  found  no  solution  for  it.  I  observe 
too,  that  our  interests  grow  cold  like  our  difficulties.  A  year 
ago  I  was  intensely  keen  on  getting  lending  libraries  introduced 
into  primary  schools,  and  I  wondered  that  other  educationists 
did  not  see  the  importance  of  this  as  I  did,  or  at  least  did  not 
take  the  same  interest  in  the  matter.  I  have  now  changed 
from  my  standpoint  to  theirs.  I  am  as  convinced  as  ever  of 
the  importance  of  the  libraries,  but  somehow  I  don't  seem  to 
care  much  more  about  them  than  if  somebody  else  were  urging 
them  upon  me.  What  is  this  interest  and  what  does  it  depend 
upon?  What  invites  it,  and  why  is  it  always  in  danger  of  dying 
away  ? " 

Qui  trop  embrasse.  .  .  . 

"  17.  8.  '77.  — Now  I  have  settled  here  quietly  with  Bertha 
I  have  been  looking  at  books,  Szc,  and  the  conclusion  I.  have 
come  to  is,  that  I  have  material  for  Educational  writing  which 
I  could  not  manipulate  without  an  additional  life  or  two.  The 
danger  now  is  lest  I  should  be  crushed  by  my  material  and  never 
do  anything.  Even  in  writing  my  Essays,  I  found  at  times 
that  I  must  stick  to  one  authority  if  I  wanted  to  get  anything 
finished,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  the  experience  of  much 
abler  writers.  Macaulay  might  be  supposed  to  have  had  bound- 
less material  and  unequalled  power  in  dealing  with  it,  and  yet 
when  I  read  Johnson's  Addison,  I  found  that  it  virtually  con- 
tained the  material  of  Macaulay's  great  Essay.  So  now  I  must 
cultivate  the  art  of  neglecting  instead  of  amassing,  and  in  read- 
ing must  confine  myself  to  what  is  really  great,  either  in  thought 
or  expression.  For  writing  this  should  afford  sufficient  stoff 
combined  with  what  I  think  myself.  One's  own  thoughts  have 
a  freshness  which  makes  them  palatable  to  others,  and  so  one's 
indifferent  mutton  having  been  cooked  only  once  may  be  pre- 
ferred to  venison  that  has  been  served  up  again  and  again  in 
different  forms,  till  it  has  become  tasteless.  How  strange  it  is 
that  one  is  so  long  in  learning  the  importance  of  great  books 
and  the  necessity  of  neglecting  middling  ones." 


70  R.  H.  Quick 

Thoughts  on  the  New  Year 

"i  Jan.  1878.  Marine  Parade,  Brighton,  6  a.m.  When 
one  thinks  of  the  immensity  of  time  and  of  the  Christian 
hope  that  there  is  endless  existence  before  us,  one  is  perplexed 
that  this  infinity  of  time  should  take  its  character  from  a 
few  years  that  seem  to  bear  no  proportion  to  it.  One  observes, 
however,  that  in  the  time  here  by  far  the  greatest  portion 
is  determined  by  certain  hours  or  it  may  be  minutes. 

'•  In  itself  a  thought, 
A  slumbering  thought,  is  capable  of  years  — ' 

says  Byron,  and  certain  it  is  that  all  our  lives  are  under  the 
influence  of  moments  when  fresh  convictions  dawned  on  us,  or 
when  we  made  some  important  resolution,  or  when  we  passed 
through  some  special  trial.  With  most  of  us  the  greater  part 
of  our  life  seems  merely  wasted.  We  eat,  drink,  and  sleep,  join 
in  meaningless  chit-chat,  pay  calls  and  the  like.  Others  get 
through  an  immense  amount  of  work  ;  but  at  times  we  have 
ghmpses  which  show  us  that  life  consists  neither  in  chit-chat 
nor  in  work,  and  that  even  the  latter  needs  something  in  it, 
but  not  of  it,  before  it  can  be  good  for  anything  '  in  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.'  Perhaps  the  scanty  moments  we  give  to 
prayer  may  in  importance  be  the  chief  part  of  our  existence. 

"June  26,  1878.  I  have  now  been  a  schoolmaster  for 
twenty  years  off  and  on,  and  I  seriously  doubt  whether  I  have 
learnt  my  alphabet  as  a  teacher.  I  set  off  with  an  admirable 
principle  which  1  had  learnt  from  my  own  teacher,  L.,  at  Cam- 
bridge. L.  used  to  expound  away  and  expound  away,  and 
thought  that  what  was  clear  to  his  own  mind  must  in  the  end 
become  clear  to  mine.  But  he  never  investigated  how  my 
mind  was  working,  what  I  had  taken  in,  when  I  was  at  fault, 
&c. ;  so  I  listened  to  his  explanations,  broke  down  at  some 
point  near  the  beginning,  and  let  him  go  on  by  himself.  I 
wished  I  could  follow,  but  could  not.     I  asked  him  this  and 


Thoughts  on  teaching  71 

that ;  he  went  off  again,  and  in  the  end  I  was  obUged  to  say^ 
'  Yes,  yes,  all  right,'  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  whole  concern. 
From  this  experience  I  decided  that  the  teacher  ought  not  to 
think  of  the  image  in  his  mind,  but  of  the  image  in  the  mind 
of  his  pupil.  I  have  made  this  the  test  of  my  preaching,  but 
alas  not  of  my  practice.  I  have  always  had  to  do  with  boys  in 
numbers,  and  have  always  been  in  a  muddle,  with  arrears  of 
uncorrected  exercises,  &c.,  so  that  I  have  never  felt  at  leisure 
to  take  note  of  the  mental  condition  or  mental  operations  of 
particular  pupils.  Here  at  Orme  Square,  with  a  few  pupils  I 
have  had  a  fair  opportunity,  but  my  habits  have  been  so 
formed  by  past  teaching  that  I  have  gone  on  pretty  much 
in  the  rough  as  before.  I  have  set  lessons  and  hardly  ob- 
served how  far  they  have  been  carefully  learnt.  Certainly  I 
have  never  investigated  how  the  boys'  minds  have  worked 
upon  them.  My  most  successful  lesson  has  been  in  mental 
arithmetic.  In  this  I  have  asked  no  end  of  questions  of  the 
same  kind  and  let  the  boys  invent  their  own  methods  of 
solving  them.  I  have  once  or  twice  enquired  and  found  the 
greatest  variety  of  ways  adopted.  But  as  some  of  these  ways 
were  certainly  better  than  others,  I  ought  to  have  pointed 
out  the  better  ways.  I  have  asked  them  about  their  way  of 
learning  poetry,  but  have  given  little  help  towards  the  right 
way.  I  find  they  mostly  learn  it  as  mere  sounds,  often  a  line 
at  a  time.  And  throughout  I  have  gone  on  the  most  happy- 
go-lucky  method,  not  doing  more  than  examining  results  and 
grumbling  at  them.  Lake  ^  opened  my  eyes  very  much  by 
the  questions  he  put  to  some  of  my  boys  :  —  Where  do  you 
find  difficulty?     Can't  you  tliink  of  the  sense  of  the  piece,  or 

of  the  words,  or  of  what? At  present  one  is  content 

with  setting  work  and  blowing  up  if  the  boy  fails.  It's  very 
easy  to  do  this,  and  perhaps  masters  of  pubhc  schools  with  a 
stream  of  boys  passing  through  their  forms,  some  thirty  or  more 

^  A  private   schoolmaster  of  marked   originality,  the   founder  of  the 
Education  Society,  which  was  merged  in  the  Teachers'  Guild. 


72  R.  H.  Quick 

at  a  time,  and  their  pupil-room  of  some  thirty  more  boys,  can't 
do  anything  else.  But  with  a  small  number  like  mine  one 
might  try  to  find  out  what  a  boy's  strength  and  what  his 
weakness  is,  how  he  tackles  a  thing,  and  how  he  is  balked 
in  his  efforts,  whether  he  scamps  his  work  or  does  his  best  at 
it,  what  knowledge  he  already  has  and  how  he  brings  his  old 
knowledge  to  bear  on  a  new  task.  A  man  endeavouring  to 
understand  his  pupils  in  this  way  would  not  think  of  his  office 
as  a  driver  thinks  of  his,  and  suppose  that  his  main  function 
was  to  hoot  or  whip  when  the  horses  did  not  seem  going 
fast  enough.  He  would  find  that  each  boy  required  peculiar 
treatment,  and  if  the  man  were  wise  and  loving,  his  work 
would  be  noble  work  indeed.  Boys  are  beautifully  tractable, 
and  if  they  only  feel  that  the  master  sympathizes  with  them 
and  is  really  anxious  to  get  them  on,  his  influence  is  enor- 
mous. But  who  is  sufficient  for  these  things?  One  wants  to 
give  the  school  hours  only  to  one's  school  work,  and  one  has 
to  knock  off  things  as  quickly  as  possible.  One  cannot  always 
be  wise,  always  anxious  for  the  greatest  possible  good  of  one's 
pupils,  always  in  good  spirits  and  good  temper. 

'■  Kind  Nature  is  the  best,  those  manners  next 
Which  fit  us  like  a  nature  second  hand, 
Which  are  indeed  the  manners  of  the  great.' 

<  "This  is  the  universal  experience  in  the  matter  of  manners. 
If  we  were  always  kind,  considerate,  and  unselfish,  there  would 
be  no  need  of  politeness.  But  this  cannot  be  so.  We  are  at 
times  petulant,  and  overbearing,  and  inconsiderate,  and  there- 
fore it  is  found  best  that  we  should  by  habit  acquire  a  manner 
which  conceals  these  unpleasant  things  and  makes  us  simulate 
what  is  good  for  the  sake  of  being  gentlemanlike.  Considera- 
tions of  this  kind  have  made  me  lately  wish  to  mechanise 
education,  or  rather  instruction.  If  we  could  have  a  certain 
form  impressed  on  us  by  habit  and  thus  secure  our  main- 
taining a  tolerably  good  manner  and  method,  would  not  this 


Thoughts  on  teaching  jt^ 

be  better  than  setting  out  with  good  principles  and  good  inten- 
tions and  trusting  to  them  to  supply  manner  and  method  as 
we  went  along?  We  are  apt  to  forget  principles  or  to  draw 
wrong  conclusions  from  them.  Our  good  intentions  will  not 
always  enable  us  to  act  wisely,  and  in  many  cases  they  will 
break  down  in  the  worries  of  school  life.  Might  not  good 
forms  come  to  our  aid?  Perhaps  they  would  no  more  check 
the  influence  of  right  principle  and  good  intention  than  polite- 
ness checks  the  action  of  heartfelt  kindness  and  noble  disin- 
terestedness which  are  altogether  above  its  level." 

About  the  end  of  187S  Quick  was  asked  to  stand  as  a 
candidate  for  the  office  of  Inspector  to  the  schools  of  the 
Girls'  Public  Day  School  Company  and  readily  consented. 
The  thought  of  holding  the  first  inspectorship  of  secondary 
schools  that  had  been  created  in  England  attracted  him 
greatly,  and  though  the  most  modest  of  men,  he  considered 
that  for  this  post  he  was  exceptionally  qualified.  He  was 
fired  with  visions  of  the  uses  to  which  he  would  turn  his 
new  office,  the  precedents  he  would  set,  the  reforms  he  would 
introduce  — "  lectures  to  teachers,  suggestions  about  school 
books,  examinations  of  teachers,  estabhshment  of  libraries 
both  for  teachers  and  scholars."  These  Alnaschar  dreams 
were  rudely  broken  by  a  letter  from  the  Chairman  of  the 
Company  announcing  the  appointment  of  another  gentleman, 
and  the  Diary  makes  no  attempt  to  conceal  the  bitterness  of 
the  disappointment,  though  it  frankly  allows  that  he  alone  is  to 
blame  for  the  failure. 

"The  loss  to  the  schools  and  to  me  has  been  brought 
about  by  my  self-importance  and  irritability.  In  my  own 
mind  I  certainly  did  put  the  good  of  the  schools  first,  but 
I  expected  other  people  to  see  my  merits  as  clearly  as  I  saw 
them  myself  (could  any  expectation  be  more  ridiculous  !),  and 
I  allowed  myself  to  be  nettled  and  to  show  that  I  was  nettled 
when  they  shewed  themselves  undiscerning.  I  ought  to  have 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  wanted  the  post  and  then  have  tried 


74  R.  H.  Quick 

my  best  to  get  it.  Men's  merits  are  not  often  recognised  as 
they  were  at  the  Olympic  games,  when  the  victors  had  the 
town  walls  pulled  down  to  let  them  in.  I  see  now  that  if  one 
is  too  proud  to  enter  the  town  by  the  common  gate  one  ought 
to  have  a  tent  to  camp  outside." 

In  1879  the  Senate  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  acting 
on  a  memorial  addressed  to  the  two  Universities  by  the  Head- 
masters' Conference,  passed  a  grace  appointing  a  Teachers' 
Training  Syndicate.  The  principal  function  entrusted  to  the 
Syndicate  was  the  institution  and  regulation  of  an  examination 
in  the  Theory,  History,  and  Practice  of  Education  and  the 
award  of  certificates  both  in  Theory  and  in  Practical  Effi- 
ciency. It  was  also  empowered  to  appoint  lecturers  in  the 
three  branches.  How  this  latter  recommendation  was  carried 
out  in  the  first  instance  the  Note-books  will  tell  us  sufficiently, 
but  it  may  be  worth  while  to  correct  an  exaggerated  notion 
of  the  dignity  and  emoluments  of  a  Lecturer  which  we  find 
in  the  sketch  of  M.  Parmentier  from  which  we  have  already 
quoted.  '  Up  till  then  [his  leaving  Harrow]  '  the  French 
professor  writes,  *  his  modesty  had  kept  him  from  holding 
any  important  position,  but  the  moment  was  approaching 
when  justice  would  be  done  him.  In  1879  ^  course  of  lec- 
tures on  the  History  of  Education  was  opened  at  Cambridge, 
and  Quick  was  appointed  to  the  Chair.  This  time  c'etait 
Ihomme  a  sa  place,  it  was  the  right  man  in  the  right  place. 
He  remained  there  till  1883,  when  his  headaches  compelled 
him  to  resign  the  post  and  he  re-entered  the  ministry.' 

M.  Parmentier  not  unnaturally  supposes  that  Quick  took 
rank  as  a  University  Professor,  a  Professor  extraordinarius , 
with  dignity  and  emolument  according,  the  fact  being  that 
he  was  appointed  ad  hoc  to  give  a  set  of  eight  lectures  for 
one  term  of  the  academic  year  with  an  honorarium  of  ^^25  for 
the  course.  He  was,  it  is  true,  reappointed,  but  in  England 
to  lecture  on  Education  does  not  ])rovide  a  man  with  a  pro- 
fession, or  indeed  with  bread  and  butter. 


Cambridge  lectures  75 

Lectures  at  Cambridge  for  Teachers'  Training  Syndicate 

"18  Oct.  '79.  P'irst  lecture  on  Education  in  University 
of  Cambridge.  This  may  prove  an  event  in  the  history  of  the 
University,  but  no  beginning  could  be  less  promising.  There 
has  been  a  notion  in  the  minds  of  a  few  leading  men,  that  the 
University  should  do  something  for  the  training  of  teachers. 
Nobody  thought  the  opposite  and  so  the  scheme  was  allowed 
to  pass.  But  who  cares  about  the  subject  ?  The  dons  don't, 
and  if  they  did  they  would  naturally  read  about  it  rather  than 
come  to  lectures.  Undergraduates  don't  care  about  it.  They 
of  course  are  affected  by  the  feeling  of  their  elders,  and  there 
is  no  likelihood  of  their  valuing  a  subject  of  this  kind  when 
their  seniors  are  one  and  all  indifferent  to  it.  Besides,  the 
undergraduate  has  regular  subjects  for  examinations  and  his 
mind  is  concentrated  on  these.  There  might  be  a  few  stray 
bachelors  but  not  enough  for  an  audience.  To-day  I  found 
that  my  audience  was  composed  almost  entirely  of  young  ladies 
from  Newnham  and  Girton.  There  were  from  eighty  to  ninety 
of  them  and  from  ten  to  fifteen  men.  Besides  Oscar  Browning, 
who  came  officially,  there  were  I  think  two  dons  and  eight  or 
ten  young  men.  The  lecture  was  in  one  of  the  new  rooms 
called  '  Literary  Schools '  opposite  St  John's  College  ;  these 
schools  abut  on  a  piece  of  ground  used  as  a  play-ground  by  the 
St  John's  choristers,  as  I  was  informed.  Who  the  boys  were  I 
cannot  say,  but  the  noise  they  made  was  such  as  to  prevent 
the  possibility  of  any  lecture  being  of  use.  Neither  lecturer 
nor  lectured  could  attend  to  much  besides  the  boys.  I  had 
written  my  lecture  very  carefully,  but  not  with  a  view  of  read- 
ing it  to  school  girls,  and  I  am  afraid  they  were  as  much 
disappointed  as  I  was.  They  were  all  armed  with  pencils  and 
paper  and  expected  to  have  a  lot  of  facts  given  them  to  jot 
down.  One  of  the  absurd  effects  of  our  so-called  '  education  * 
is  that  young  men  and  women  acquire  an  insatiable  thirst  for 
facts.     If  I  had  only  told  these  young  people  when  and  where 


76  R.  H.  Quick 

Aristotle  was  born,  and  what  his  father's  name  was,  and  the 
names  of  his  writings;  or  coming  to  our  own  country,  if  I  had 
given  tliem  the  dates  of  the  foundations  of  our  chief  schools 
and  the  names  of  the  first  headmasters,  they  would  have  been 
quite  happy  and  taken  it  all  '  schwarz  an  weiss  getrost  nach 
Hause.'  But  they  never  ask  themselves  whether  a  thing  is 
worth  remembering.  They  have  a  vague  notion  that  such 
things  may  be  asked  in  examination,  and  what  is  education 
but  learning,  and  what  is  learning  but  preparing  for  examina- 
tions? How  can  one  do  any  good  lecturing  school  girls  in 
this  frame  of  mind?  Die  Tliatsache  an  sick  ist  nichis.  Till 
we  have  given  our  young  people  an  inkling  of  this  truth  our 
education  is  a  failure. 

"20  Oct.  1879.  I  was  a  good  deal  disappointed  with  the 
effect  of  the  first  Cambridge  lecture  on  Education.  If  no  one 
but  a  dozen  men  or  appreciative  women  had  been  there,  I 
could  have  given  the  lecture  with  much  more  satisfaction  to 
everybody.  An  auditor  who  does  not  feel  interested,  does  not 
go  for  nothing.  He  exerts  a  negative  influence.  That  four- 
fifths  of  my  audience  would  not  care  for  what  I  was  saying  or 
even  understand  it,  quite  destroyed  my  pleasure  in  lecturing, 
and  if  the  lecturer  is  bored  everybody  else  is  sure  to  be.  The 
most  successful  lecture  I  ever  gave  was  to  half-a-dozen  people 
at  the  Schools  at  Westminster  (Gofifin's)  :  they  were  thoroughly 
amused  and  we  all  enjoyed  it.  Nobody  was  thinking  of 
examinations,  and  there  was  not  a  fact-hunter  present.  These 
fact-hunters  are  silly  people.  Bricks  are  useful  in  building,  but 
if  we  are  not  just  going  to  build,  it  is  very  stupid  to  fill  one's 
pockets  with  bricks. 

"  24  Oct.  '79.  I  gave  my  second  lecture  the  day  before 
yesterday.  There  was  a  falling-off  from  100  to  68,  but  I 
believe  some  came  to  the  first  lecture  who  did  not  intend 
coming  any  more.  There  were  about  ten  men  at  the  second 
lecture.  I  am  somewhat  vexed  that  not  a  single  one  of  my 
personal  acquaintance,  old  or  young,  should  have  come,  but 


Cambridge  lectures  j*j 

this  is  a  trifle.  Wliat  is  of  much  more  moment  is  that  the 
subject  is  utterly  despised  by  the  University  pubhc.  As  to 
lecturing,  I  can't  say  that  I  have  had  any  success  as  yet.  It 
is,  I  think,  a  mistake  to  give  just  what  books  would  give. 
What  would  make  excellent  reading  miglit  be  just  the  wrong 
tiling  for  a  lecture  :  and  a  very  good  lecture  might  soon  spin 
out  in  the  book  form.  I  hold  that  lectures  should  in  the 
first  place  excite  interest.  They  should  also  leave  a  strong 
impression  of  a  few  truths.  The  last  lecture  I  made  a  syllabus 
of,  and  had  it  printed.  When  I  came  to  make  this  syllabus,  I 
found  the  lecture  contained  a  good  deal  too  much.  It  would 
be  far  better  to  take  a  few  important  points  and  enlarge  on 
them  (with  Huxley  for  one's  model),  than  to  touch  on  a 
variety  of  things.  I  wish  I  could  rewrite  the  lectures  and 
syllabise  ahead,  but  this  I  have  never  managed  to  do.  I 
always  follow  my  pen.  James  Ward  was  saying  of  G.  H.  Lewes 
that  his  clearness  of  style  was  more  apj'jarent  than  real.  Every 
sentence  was  clear  by  itself  but  the  meaning  of  the  whole  was 
unsatisfactory.     This  I  fancy  is  a  very  common  fault. 

"  25  Oct.  '79.  I  lectured  for  the  third  time  to-day.  I 
can't  say  much  for  the  lecture  :  it  talked  about  too  many  things 
and  left  no  total  impression.  There  was  something  about 
Plato,  Xenophon,  Aristotle,  the  Romans,  Quintilian,  Plutarch, 
and  Early  Christianity.  This  is  not  the  right  thing  at  all.  I 
did  indeed,  in  connection  with  some  of  the  people  I  have 
named,  mention  interesting  questions  which  were  not  yet 
decided,  but  I  mentioned  them  only  and  did  not  go  into  them. 
Still  the  lecture  was  fairly  successful  and  for  this  reason  —  my 
audience  proved  a  tolerably  large  one.  The  mere  fact  that  a 
good  many  people  (nearly  a  hundred)  came,  gave  everybody  a 
notion  that  the  lecture  was  worth  coming  to,  and  when  this  per- 
suasion seizes  the  minds  of  the  audience,  the  battle  is  half  won. 

"  A  wretched  dog  kept  barking  at  the  back  and  so  dis- 
tracted my  attention  that  it  nearly  spoilt  everything  again. 

"  It  seems  to  me,  after  all,  that  speaking,  not  reading,  is  the 


^^  R.  H.   Quick 

proper  thing.  If  one  can't  do  without  the  written  lecture  be- 
fore one,  one  ought  to  know  it  so  well  that  a  glance  now  and 
then  at  the  MS  is  enough.  That  at  least  is  my  feeling.  One 
wants  one's  eye  for  one's  audience.  Of  course  persons  who 
write  very  superior  rhetoric  —  Henry  Melvill,  e.g.  or  now- 
a-days  Farrar  —  can  roll  out  their  long  sentences  and  rivet 
people's  attention  by  sound  only,  but  it  takes  a  very  good 
rhetorician  to  do  this." 

Pourparlers  for  a  headmastership 

Quick,  as  we  have  seen,  considered  himself  pre-eminently 
fitted  for  an  Inspectorship  of  High  Schools,  and  though  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  he  would  long  have  stood  the  wear  and 
tear  of  an  '  uncommercial  traveller's  '  life,  yet  we  may  well 
regret  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  try  the  experiment.  His 
*  Visits  to  Schools  '  show  how  capable  he  was  of  acute  observa- 
tion and  sympathetic  criticism.  With  a  headmastership  the  case 
was  different.  In  some  of  the  most  essential  qualifications  — 
energy,  versatility,  despatch  —  he  was  lacking,  and  knew  himself 
to  be  lacking.  When  in  1880  friends  suggested  that  he  should 
apply  for  the  headmastership  of  Hurstpierpoint,  vacant  by  the 
retirement  of  Dr  Low,  he  at  once  rejected  the  notion ;  but  a 
proposal  from  Dr  Low  that  he  should  offer  himself  tempted 
him  so  far  that  he  consented  to  see  the  Rev.  N.  Woodard,  with 
whom  the  appointment  rested,  and  talk  the  matter  over  with 
him.  As  might  have  been  anticipated  in  five  minutes  the  busi- 
ness was  settled  in  the  negative.  What  Mr  Woodard  wanted 
was  a  headmaster  to  strengthen  and  confirm  the  Churchman- 
ship  of  the  school.  Quick  at  once  avowed  that  he  was  not  a 
High  Churchman,  and  the  business  was  at  an  end.  Quick  was 
asked  to  stay  for  the  night,  and  after  dinner  his  host  expounded 
freely  his  aims  and  methods,  much  as  Bishop  Blougram  did  to 
Gigadibs.  We  get  a  lifelike,  though  doubtless  a  partial  portrait, 
a  Kodak  as  it  were,  of  a  very  remarkable  man,  the  modern 
apostle  of  middle-class  education. 


A  headinastcrship  79 

The  conception  of  what  proved  his  life  mission  (so  Quick 
was  told)  daced  back  to  the  years  when  he  was  a  curate  in 
an  East-end  parish  near  the  London  Hospital.  Here  he  made 
the  people  devotedly  attached  to  him,  and  they  would  come 
to  church  to  please  him,  but  he  found  them  hopelessly  ignorant 
of  the  very  rudiments  of  the  Church's  teaching  and  too  old  to 
assimilate  the  doctrine  that  he  sought  to  instil  into  them. 
Hence  the  idea  was  forced  upon  him  that  people  must  be 
brought  up  to  be  Churchmen,  and  his  scheme  of  schools  was 
gradually  evolved.  For  education  per  se  he  cared  nothing, 
and  he  did  not  think  people  were  the  better  for  secular  instruc- 
tion. Like  Mrs  Gaskell's  Lady  Ludlow  he  considered  that 
they  made  far  better  servants  in  the  good  old  times,  when  they 
could  neither  read  nor  write. 

The  impression  left  on  Quick  was  "  a  fine  old  fellow,  some- 
what egotistical  and  narrow,  a  Tory  of  the  Sir  Robert  Inglis 
type,  a  man  of  strong  will  and  boundless  energy,  with  a  firm 
belief  in  his  own  ideas,  tempered  only  by  a  saving  sense  of 
humour,  humour  of  the  George  Anthony  Denison  type." 

He  had  heard  Seeley  lecture  to  a  class  of  some  170,  and 
rejoiced  that  to  the  big  men  there  comes  success  at  last. 
With  small  men  like  himself  it  must  very  often  happjen  that 
they  fail  altogether. 

"  The  only  thing  I  see  remarkable  in  my  own  case  is  that 
after  success  that  I  never  should  have  dreamt  of,  I  am  fiiiling 
in  a  way  that  no  one  would  have  thought  possible.  That  an 
ex-master  of  Harrow  should  utterly  fail  to  get  pupils  is  a 
marvellous  thing,  and  seems  to  point  to  some  great  disquali- 
fication, but  what  that  is  I  can't  imagine.  .  .  .  Everybody  seems 
to  unite  in  assuring  me  that  I  am  not  of  the  slightest  use, 
and  can't  be  and  shan't  be.  This  is  a  painful  experience  for 
a  man  of  50,  who  wishes  to  make  his  experience  tell  for  other 
people's  benefit. 

"On  Wed.,  19  Oct.,  I  lectured  again  at  Cambridge.  Audi- 
ence, four  ladies.     This  would  have  a  good  deal  disappointed 


8o  R.  H.  Quick 

me  some  time  back,  but  my  late  experience  has  rendered  me 
quite  impervious  to  feelings  of  disappointment  of  such  a  kind. 
People  don't  know  anything  about  the  history  of  education  and 
don't  want  to  know,  and  there  is  nothing  popular  in  my  style 
of  lecturing,  so  I  don't  the  least  wonder  that  people  don't  come." 
In  1 88 1  Quick  determined  to  give  up  the  day-school  in 
Orme  Square  and  start  a  preparatory  school  for  boarders. 
The  obvious  reason  for  the  change  was  that  the  London 
school  was  hardly  paying  its  way,  but  he  was  further  urged 
by  the  desire  of  gaining  more  intimate  knowledge  of  child 
nature  and  character  than  is  possible  when  intercourse  is 
restricted  to  school  hours.  There  was,  moreover,  that  ever- 
present  motive  which  was  one  of  the  mainsprings  of  his  life, 
the  love  of  change,  that  roving  spirit  ever  thirsting  for  new 
experiences  which  Tennyson  has  pourtrayed  m  his  *  Ulysses.' 
This  time  he  pitched  his  tent  near  Guildford,  in  a  new  house 
pleasantly  situated  on  the  slope  of  the  downs.  For  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  Guildford  school,  if  half-a-dozen  pupils  (which  was 
the  maximum  hmit)  can  be  called  a  school,  I  am  indebted  to 
the  reminiscences  of  an  old  pupil,  which  give  a  vivid  impres- 
sion both  of  his  manner  and  his  methods  of  instruction. 

Guildford 

Just  before  starting  his  preparatory  school  at  Guildford 
he  had  experience  of  teaching  a  single  pupil.  The  diary  at 
starting  is  all  couleur  de  rose.  The  pupil,  a  boy  of  13,  is 
bright,  willing,  and  teachable,  though  he  has  been  badly 
trained.  He  has  done  quadratics,  but  fails  in  simple  addi- 
tion, knows  about  indices,  but  has  never  heard  of  an  index, 
can  do  'least  common  multiple,'  but  cannot  define  a  mul- 
tiple. As  time  goes  on  there  is  considerable  friction.  The 
boy  dawdles  over  his  work,  his  attention  flags,  he  forgets 
what  he  is  told,  and  when  he  is  ])ulled  up,  sulks.  "  He 
puts  a  kind  of  false  bottom  to  his  mind  by  taking  everything 
he  remembers  or  thinks  he  remembers  as  axioms  from  which 


Guildford  8i 

everything  is  to  start."  The  boy  at  last  proves  a  very  incubus. 
The  inference  Quick  draws  is  that  the  ordinary  boy  will  not 
get  on  without  competition.  The  boy  who  covets  knowledge 
for  its  own  sake  or  is  eager  for  self-improvement  is  a  black 
swan,  and  if  there  is  no  natural  desire  to  excel,  the  tutor  has 
no  stimulus  to  apply,  and  is  nonplussed.  He  goes  on  to 
generalise  :  — 

"  This  getting  hold  of  the  ^tnll  of  the  pupil  is  not  thought 
of  in  most  schemes  of  instruction.  Lord  Spencer^  says  you 
must  teach  this  or  that  in  Standard  iv.,  because  most  of  the 
children  leave  school  when  they  have  passed  Standard  iv. 
He  does  not  reflect  that  little  street  urchins  of  nine  years 
old  don't  want  to  know  '  the  chief  features  of  land  and 
water  on  the  globe,'  and  that  till  they  want  to  know  it  is  of 
no  use  trying  to  teach  them.  The  will  of  the  teacher  may 
exact  from  them  the  repetition  of  forms  of  words,  but  these 
words  will  not  be  connected  with  ideas  and  will  soon  be 
forgotten. 

"  I  have  spoken  of  poor  Lord  Spencer,  but  I  think  that 
his  lordship,  who  has  been  put  to  preside  over  education 
mainly,  I  believe,  because  he  was  not  wanted  in  Ireland, 
and  being  a  lord  who  has  held  office  could  not  well  be  left 
out  in  the  cold,  has  no  notion  at  all  on  the  subject,  and 
merely  echoed  what  he  had  been  told  by  Mundella.  In  the 
interview  with  MacCarthy  and  Co.  to  which  I  am  referring 
Mundella  said,  '  It  is  desirable  that  a  boy  in  the  4th  Standard 
should  have  some  outline  of  English  history  in  his  mind,  and 
that  he  should  know  something  in  skeleton  or  outline  of 
geography,'  and  being  '  desirable,'  that  is  no  doubt  the 
object  of  Mr  Mundella's  New  Code.  When  a  man  starts 
off  to  give  gamins  who  leave  school  at  nine  or  ten  an  outline 
of  English  history  and  an  outline  or  skeleton  of  geography, 
some  astounding  piece  of  folly  is  the  only  result  possible." 

About  this  time,  too,  he  found  a  new  interest  which,  during 
1  The  then  Lord  President  of  the  Council  of  Education. 
G 


82  R.  H.  Quick 

the  last  decade  of  his  Ufe,  engrossed  no  inconsiderable  part 
of  his  thoughts  and  time.  As  early  as  1S77  he  was  invited 
by  the  Educational  Council  of  Yorkshire  to  give  a  course  of 
lectures  on  some  educational  subject.  Under  the  date  26  Sept. 
1877  he  writes  :  "  Leeds.  I  lectured  on  Monday,  with  Dr  Gott 
in  the  chair  — a  good  audience  —  the  Philosophic  Hall  nearly 
full.  I  almost  tliink  I  should  like  lecturing  if  I  hatl  more 
practice  and  could  acquire  the  art  of  expanding  what  I  had 
to  say." 

"  I  lectured  at  Birmingham  on  the  Teacher's  use  of  Memory. 
I  was  not  in  my  best  form,  but  was  more  successful  than  usual. 
I  attracted  a  very  good  audience,  and  they  were,  most  of  them 
at  least,  my  equals  in  intellect,  so  they  saw  quickly  enough 
what  I  meant.  Very  often  I  have  lectured  to  half-educated 
girls  who  could  not  follow  me.  Besides  this,  I  can  lecture 
with  more  assurance  and  make  my  points  better  now  that  I 
am  getting  old  and  feel  more  assured  of  my  position.  It  is 
very  pleasant  to  feel  that  one  is  taking  the  audience  along 
with  one." 

Reminiscences  of  Guildford  by  an  old  pupil 

'  I  went  down  from  \Vaterloo  with  Mrs  Quick.  Mr  Quick 
met  us  at  Guildford  station.  I  was  first  struck  with  his  brown 
eyes  and  his  quick  way  of  speaking,  giving  three  or  four  words 
fast  and  then  pausing  before  the  next. 

'  School  did  not  begin  for  two  days  after,  and  so  I  was  alone. 
After  tea  in  the  old  back  dining-room,  he  took  me  over  the 
house,  via  the  front  staircase,  which  was  the  only  one  I  knew 
for  those  two  days.  Up  in  the  'dormitory  '  he  shewed  me  my 
bed,  basin,  and  '  locker,'  so  called  because  it  fastened  with  a 
button. 

*  After  this  lie  took  me  down  \.o  the  breakfast-room  in  the 
front,  shewed  me  a  pile  of  books,  and  after  a  short  discussion 
on  the  relative  merits  of  7'oin  IhoKni  and  Eric,  left  me  to 
myself  till  dinner.     I  don't  know  whether  he  thought  of  that, 


Guildford  83 

very  likely,  but  I  became  particularly  attached  to  that  room 
which  had  a  view  towards  London  and  of  the  railway  which 
would  take  me  back  to  it  in  13  weeks. 

'  After  prayers  he  took  me  up  to  my  bedroom.  He  wouldn't 
let  me  spend  my  first  night  away  from  home  in  an  attic  all 
by  myself,  but  put  me  into  a  spare  room  near  the  rest  of  the 
household.  In  the  second  term  when,  for  some  reason,  the 
other  two  boys  were  away,  I  was  again  asked  whether  I  should 
like  to  go  there  instead  of  to  the  top  of  the  house. 

*  The  next  day  the  two  day  boys  from  the  rectory  next  door 
came  in  for  an  hour's  writing  lesson,  in  which  I  joined  them. 

'  I  was  one  of  the  three  boarders  who  formed  half  the  school 
for  the  last  two  terms  of  its  existence,  that  is,  the  summer  and 
winter  terms  of  1882.     Our  ages  ranged  from   10  to  13. 

'  The  day  began  with  prayers  in  the  breakfast  room.  In  the 
matter  of  meals,  we  were  treated  as  members  of  the  family, 
having  breakfast,  dinner,  and  high  tea  with  them.  In  my  first 
term  they  had  late  dinner  and  then  we  were  '  clapped  down  ' 
(a  school  bell  was  a  later  institution)  to  biscuits  and  cheese 
after. 

'  After  breakfast  we  went  down  to  the  playroom,  an  empty 
billiard-room  in  the  basement,  where  we  played  squash  rackets 
or  a  species  of  football  with  a  small  ball  (Association)  with 
which  Mr  Quick  kept  us  supplied. 

'  The  schoolroom  was  on  the  first  floor.  Work  began  at 
9.30  with  half-an-hour's  Scripture.  Each  of  us  had  a  copy  of 
S.  Matthew,  and  one  read  two  or  three  verses.  The  lecture 
whicli  followed  would  sometimes  be  as  much  concerned  with 
the  phrasing  of  a  passage  as  with  its  teaching.  I  was  a  long 
time  one  day  in  being  reconciled  to  '  Do  not  even  the  publicans 
so  '  —  I  wanted  '  publicans  do  so  '  ;  and  I  don't  believe  I  was 
quite  convinced  by  10  o'clock.  Occasionally,  a  hymn  would 
take  the  place  of  reading. 

'At  10  o'clock  we  got  out  Welch  and  Duffield's  Eiitropius 
and  construed.     (All  books  were  '  lent '  to  us.)     As  far  as  I 


84  R.  H.  Quick 

remember  we  never  prepared  the  part  beforehand  ;  he  preferred 
to  introduce  us  to  new  ground  himself.  We  didn't  do  more 
than  about  six  Hnes  at  a  time  and  went  over  the  back  parts 
again  and  again. 

'  After  construing  we  went  to  our  places,  but  what  to  do  I 
can't  remember,  as  I  think  we  had  the  previous  evening's 
corrections  returned  to  us  later. 

'At  about  II  we  went  down  to  the  playroom  for  lo 
minutes.  The  time  till  12  or  12.30  was  always  devoted  to 
Arithmetic.  He  explained  the  system  of  notation — parcels 
of  lo's  —  and  the  meanings  of  the  operations  of  g.c.m.,  l.c.m., 
rule  of  3,  practice,  &c.,  decimals,  measurements  of  angles 
in  degrees,  &c.  At  first  we  were  made  to  do  multiplication 
and  division  sums  by  addition  and  subtraction,  and  it  was  not 
till  we  had  thoroughly  grasped  the  principle  that  we  were 
allowed  to  employ  the  ordinary  methods.  I  don't  remember 
any  geometry  except  something  about  the  meaning  of  '  a  right- 
angled  triangle.' 

'  In  the  afternoon  we  went  out  till  3,  except  in  the  very  hot 
weather,  when  we  started  work  at  2  and  went  out  at  4. 
At  first  he  came  himself  with  us,  but  afterwards  an  old  pupil 
of  his  took  us.  Mr  Quick  was  a  great  believer  in  hoops  (very 
strong  on  the  subject  of  sticks,  not  hooks),  and  we  often  took 
them  to  the  Downs,  where  he  would  spend  a  good  half-hour  in 
patiently  standing  at  the  bottom  of  a  scree  to  catch  our  hoops 
with  a  hockey  stick  as  we  sent  them  spinning  down  from  the 
top.  Perhaps  he  grasped  the  opportunity  it  gave  of  developing 
our  winds  on  the  rapid  '  up  '  journey. 

'  The  afternoon  work  was  generally  of  an  indefinite  kind,  at 
least  so  it  seemed  to  me.  We  never  had  Latin  but  once,  and 
this  infringement  of  our  liberty  caused  quite  an  hneute. 

'  Geography  was  taught  us  in  chats  about  his  Hfe  in  Germany, 
each  having  a  map.  After  one  of  these  we  would  draw  a  river 
from  the  map,  marking  principal  towns  near  and  tributaries.  I 
don't  once  remember  drawing  a  complete  map.     In  my  time 


Guildford  85 

we  went  all  up  the  Rhine  to  the  Black  Forest,  and  thence 
down  the  Danube. 

'We  were  taken  to  very  different  country  in  Winter  Evenings, 
which  became  our  stock  reading-book  when  we  had  finished 
Alice  in  Wonderkxfid.  We  had  it  out  once  or  twic:;  a  week, 
and  a  map  to  South  America  was  a  permanent  item  among  the 
wall  decorations.  '  Blank  Map  '  was  an  especial  treat,  and  I 
think  was  only  brought  out  two  or  three  times.  It  was  a 
coloured  map  of  England,  having  counties,  towns,  and  rivers 
marked,  but  not  named.  A  plain  wand  —  plainer  even  than 
an  amateur  donkey-driver's  —  did  the  business,  and  places  (in 
class)  were  made  and  lost  with  bewildering  rapidity. 

'  History  was  given  to  us  by  Mrs  Quick,  once  a  week,  when 
Mr  Quick  went  up  to  town. 

'  A  French  lesson  consisted  in  dictating  a  story  which  served 
as  material  for  several  exercises.  Also  we  had  a  verb  to  write 
out  in  tabular  form  nearly  every  evening.  I  should  say  we 
never  had  any  systematic  grammar  lesson.  The  following  is  a 
specimen  of  exercise  :  — 

Maitre  Corbeau  sur  un  arbre  perch^ 
Tenait  en  son  bee  un  fromage. 
Maitre  Renard  par  I'odeur  all^ch^, 
Lui  tint  a-peu-pres  ce  langage. 

*  For  translation  :  — 

1.  The  fox  was  a  flatterer. 

2.  The  smell  of  the  cheese  was  good. 

3.  The  fox  wished  to  have  some. 
The  crow  was  on  the  tree. 
He  had  something  in  his  beak. 
It  was  some  cheese. 
The  fox  was  under  the  tree. 
Upon  which  the  crow  was  perched. 

1,  The  crow  was  perched  upon  a  tree. 

2.  He  held  in  his  beak  a  cheese. 


a  crow 

4- 

a  tree 

5- 

a  beak 

6. 

the  cheese 

7- 

the  fox 

8. 

86  R.  H.  Quick 


The  smell  of  the  cheese  was  good. 


Master  Fox  was  attracted  by  it. 
He  wished  to  eat  some  cheese. 
But  how  to  get  it? 
The  fox  was  cunning  and  a  flatterer. 
He  spoke  thus  to  the  crow. 

'  For  German,  he  taught  us  the  Loreiey,  and  gave  it  as  the 
holiday  task  between  my  two  terms.  I  don't  remember  ever 
doing  any  grammar  or  verbs. 

'  We  often  had  poetry  ;  we  read  it  aloud  in  class,  he  shewing 
us  how  to  render  each  line,  and  often  returned  to  old  pieces. 
Among  those  we  learnt  were  —  Trelawny  —  Good  News  from 
Ghent  —  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore  —  The  Royal  George  —  The 
Lark  —  and  a  sonnet,  whose  construction  he  carefully  explained 
and  which  I  could  —  once. 

'  We  each  had  two  small  note-books,  one  in  which  we  wrote 
words  which  we  persisted  in  spelling  wrongly,  and  the  other  for 
notes  and  definitions  of  all  kinds,  such  as  —  what  is  a  sonnet  — 
what  is  a  simile  —  what  is  a  metaphor,  and  what  are  the  four 
things  necessary  to  a  metaphor?  (i)  a  thing  to  be  carried,  (2)  a 
carrier,  (3)  a  place  to  be  carried  from,  (4)  a  place  to  be 
carried  to. 

'Afternoon  school  finished  with  giving  out  about  seven 
sentences  for  translation  in  the  evening.  These  generally  had 
some  connection  with  each  other,  and  with  the  Eutrppius  of 
the  morning  ;  Romulus  figured  more  often  in  them  than  Balbus, 
though  Balbus  was  not  entirely  ignored. 

'  He  only  used  the  words  in  Eufropiiis  as  far  as  we  had  gone, 
and  the  vocabulary  in  the  book  was  the  only  dictionary  used. 

'  We  spent  the  evening  as  we  liked,  reading  our  own  books, 
or  one  of  a  selection  in  the  room.  One  evening  we  did  not  so 
spend,  and  while  he  was  having  his  tea,  having  come  home 
late,  there  was  a  sound  as  of  a  violent  impact  between  a  human 
body  and  a  nearly  closed  door  and  then  — a  death-like  silence. 
He  entered  the  schoolroom  and  found  three  little  boys  all  in  a 


Guildford  87 

row,  not  doing  anything,  not  even  talking.  He  asked  A  the 
cause  of  the  acoustical  vibrations  which  had  reached  him. 
A  said  he  didn't  know.  For  this  offence  all  the  boarders  in 
the  school  were  made  to  follow  him  down  stairs  and  to  sit  in 
silence  till  he  had  finished  tea.  Then  all  were  liberated  but  A  \ 
B  confessed  that  he  thought  the  noise  was  due  to  his  (j5) 
having  stumbled  against  the  door,  but  the  explanation  was 
too  thin.  When  A  was  conducted  back  to  us  we  learnt  that 
our  punishment  was  not  for  the  noise,  but  for  professing 
utter  ignorance  of  anything  having  ever  occurred  which  could 
be  described  by  such  a  name. 

'  Another  evening  two  of  us  were  alone,  one-third  of  the 
boarders  being  ill.  He  came  in  and  set  us  at  noughts  and 
crosses.  But  oh,  the  next  morning,  when  he  shewed  us  how 
we  had  scratched  the  blackboard  ! 

'  One  afternoon  he  told  us  to  get  out  Winter  Evenings  and 
turn  to  a  certain  page,  read  it  carefully,  and  note  the  number 
of  times  the  word  'when'  occurred  in  it.  (I  said  once;  it 
really,  according  to  the  majority,  of  which  he  formed  one, 
occurred  twice.)  On  another  occasion  he  took  one  boy  outside. 
Presently,  another  was  summoned.  Later,  the  first  reappeared 
with  a  mysterious  countenance,  and  the  third  went  out.  At  last 
it  came  out,  as  he  and  the  last  came  in.  He  had  told  a  story 
to  the  first,  who  told  it  to  the  second  —  after  his  manner  —  who 
likewise  '  repeated  '  it  to  the  third,  and  so  on,  till  the  sixth  was 
closeted  with  Mr  Quick,  who  chuckled  at  each  point  of  likeness 
to  the  original  as  the  recital  proceeded. 

'  He  was  very  fond  of  telling  us  a  story  and  getting  us  to 
write  it  out  immediately  after.  Some  of  these  were  —  The 
Brave  Tin  Soldier  —  The  Larks  and  the  Tanner  —  King  Log 
and  King  Stork  —  The  Crow  and  the  Pitcher.  My  effort  on 
the  last  has  a  comment  on  the  use  of  the  relative  pronoun  — 
'and  gradually  the  water  rose  to  the  brim,  lahich  she  cotild 
reach,  with  wiiich  she  quenched  her  thirst.' 

"So  she  quenched  lier  thirst  with  the  brim  !  " 


88  R.  H.  Quick 

'  The  whole  of  one  morning  before  1 1  was  given  to 
Captain  Parr,  who  gave  us  a  splendid  account  of  the  Arctic 
Expedition.  The  next  morning  we  had  to  write  out  an  account 
of  it.  Likewise,  when  he  took  us  to  the  circus,  we  had  to 
write  an  account  in  letter  form.  All  these  were  done  in  school 
hours. 

'  At  one  time  the  whole  school  did  drawing.  I  think  the 
master  came  once  a  fortnight,  and  we  had  one  afternoon's 
practice  between.  All  three  boarders  had  a  music  lesson  once 
a  week,  and  half-an-hour's  practice  or  —  no  pudding. 

'  A  skipping-rope  had  found  its  way  into  the  schoolroom 
one  day.  As  the  result,  the  first  half-hour  of  afternoon  school 
was  devoted  to  the  theory  of  knots.  Since  then  I  have  never, 
before  then  I  invariably,  made  a  granny. 

'When  the  big  comet  of  '82  was  on  view,  he,  at  the 
universal  request  of  the  boarders,  came  up  and  called  us  all 
at  3  o'clock. 

'  The  above-mentioned  A,  having  constructed  a  very  efficient 
form  of  'projector'  (for  principle  see  Troissart),  Mr  Quick 
reserved  for  it  his  best  elastic  bands  as  long  as  it  continued  to 
be  used.  The  same  brain  conceived,  and  the  same  hands 
executed,  a  sort  of  fiddle  with  an  adjustable,  i.e.  twistable 
bridge  by  which  the  twangs  could  be  made  distinguishable  to  a 
highly-trained  ear.  Mr  Quick  soon  replaced  the  whipcord 
'  elastic  filaments  '  with  spare  violin  string  ends.  An  officially 
recognised  institution  was  a  money-box.  With  its  contents  he 
got  illustrated  papers  for  a  hospital,  and  at  the  last,  about  a 
dozen  or  m.ore  hoops  for  the  workhouse  boys. 

'  When  we  went  to  bed  after  prayers  he  came  up  too  and 
read  under  the  gas.  For  about  five  minutes  after  we  had  said 
our  prayers  we  had  to  keep  silence,  till  he  gave  the  word. 

'  On  Sundays,  we  learnt  the  Collect  before  church.  In  the 
afternoon  he  took  us  for  a  good  walk,  S.  Martha's  being  a 
favourite.  After  tea  w^e  had  to  keep  the  '  silent  hour '  in 
which  we  might  not  talk,  nor  write  letters,  nor  read  fairy  tales. 


Gtiildford  89 

This  was  a  good  way  of  sending  us  through  the  '  selection  '  in 
the  book-case. 

'  The  evening  was  spent  in  the  drawing-room,  when 
Mrs  Quick  read  some  school  stories ;  there  was  a  good  selec- 
tion of  puzzles  at  liand  too. 

'  The  only  sort  of  imposition  I  remember  is  having  to 
rewrite  a  set  of  Latin  sentences  with  E's  which  could  be 
distinguished  from  C's,  and  this  was  after  repeated  admonitions 
had  been  disregarded. 

'  His  system  of  marking  was  this  :  — ■ 

'i=:poor;  2  =  fair;  3  =  good;  3v'=good  and  a  tenth  of  a 
'G'  given;  4  =  very  good  and  a  fifth  of  a  'G'  given.  Very 
occasionally  a  whole  *  G '  was  given  on  the  strength  of  a  single 
paper.  The  '  G's '  were  written  on  a  card,  one  row  for  each 
boy,  and  when  the  whole  school  had  put  together  20  G's  since 
the  last  making  up,  we  had  a  half-holiday. 

'  On  the  other  hand,  such  a  thing  as  O  was  sometimes  to  be 
seen,  and  0^  =  B,  cancelled  a  whole  G. 

'  After  leaving  us  in  the  bedroom  he  went  downstairs,  but  he 
had  not  finished  with  us.  One  of  us  had  a  hot  bath  every 
night,  and  he  always  paid  a  visit  to  the  bath-room  with  his 
book,  staying  10  minutes  or  so. 

*  The  first  morning  that  I  was  late  —  the  gong  sounded  while 
I  was  in  the  quite  early  stages  —  I  was  seized  with  an  awful 
panic  and  stayed  up  by  my  bed,  and,  for  want  of  something 
better  to  do,  started  the  waterworks  into  brisk  action.  In 
about  10  minutes  the  familiar  tread  approached,  and  with  a 
casual  remark  about  tears  not  putting  time  back,  he  took  me 
down  to  breakfast. 

'  Afterwards,  both  A  and  I  were  late  two  mornings  running. 
We  had  therefore  to  present  ourselves  in  the  schoolroom 
10  minutes  before  the  gong  sounded,  until  further  notice.  This 
"■  further  notice  '  came  on  the  second  day  of  successful  perform- 
ance ;  and  we  specially  remarked  that  he  shook  hands  with  a 
lateral  motion  — a  sure  sign  of  approval.' 


90  R.  H.  Quick 

The  above  narrative  of  a  pupil  written  after  a  lapse  of  ten 
years  shows  that  Quick's  methods  of  teaching  and  discipline 
produced  permanent  impressions.  He  himself,  however,  was 
dissatisfied  and  inclined  to  lose  heart. 

"  i8.  II.  '82.  I  cannot  help  regretting  that  I  shall  never 
have,  as  far  as  I  can  see,  any  chance  of  completing  my  experi- 
ment in  elementary  education.  I  can't  say  that  the  results  so 
far  have  come  up  to  my  expectations.  I  have  made  the  school 
hours  easy,  I  have  endeavoured  to  interest  boys  in  their  work, 
and  in  this  I  have  succeeded.  I  have  succeeded  too  to  some 
extent  in  getting  the  boys  to  inquire  into  the  meaning  of  words 
and  seek  clear  ideas.  But  in  these  days  everything  is  tested 
not  by  the  boy's  power  of  work  or  method  of  working,  but 
simply  by  what  he  has  learnt,  which  is  a  very  different  thing. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  in  the  end  a  boy  would  actually 
learn  more  by  working  with  all  his  mind  than  by  simply  going 
over  and  over  the  same  thing  till  it  was  fixed  in  the  memory, 
but  I  must  confess  that  the  positive  results  are  as  yet  dis- 
appointing." 

In  1879,  Quick  undertook  for  the  Pitt  Press  Syndicate  the 
editing  of  Locke's  Thoughts  concerning  Education.  It  seemed 
to  him  a  national  disgrace  that  the  one  classical  work  on 
education  that  we  could  then  boast,  though  it  had  been  trans- 
lated into  most  European  languages,  should  never  have  been 
edited  in  England,  and  that  even  for  the  text  the  student  had 
to  go  to  Germany  or  America.  Though  professedly  founded 
on  Mr  Fox  Bourne's  Life,  the  Biographical  and  Critical  Intro- 
duction is  a  pregnant  and  close  pressed  essay  of  some  forty 
pages,  involving  no  little  original  research.  Previous  critics  in 
England  —  Hallam,  Professor  Eraser,  Mr  Fowler  —  had  either 
ignored  or  slurred  over  the  educational  side  of  Locke's  life  and 
writings  and  attended  only  to  his  philosophy.  This  defect 
Quick  for  the  first  time  m:\kes  good,  gathering  together  Locke's 
experiences  as  a  tutor,  pointing  out  the  relation  in  which  he 
stands  to  his  predecessors,  Rabelais,  Comenius,  Montaigne,  and 


A  7^etr aspect  9 1 

showing  how  his  educational  theories  are  deductions  from  his 
general  philosophy. 

"  23  March,  '80.  Cambridge.  I  took  in  the  last  copy  on 
Saturday  night  and  Locke  is  rolled  off  m\'  mind.  I  have  been 
so  much  engaged  with  the  book  lately  that  it  was  constantly 
buzzing  in  my  brain.  The  only  alternative  subject  has  been 
politics.  When  my  mind  gets  in  this  state  I  keep  remembering 
rather  than  thinking.  The  subject  haunts  my  mind  ;  if  I  with- 
draw my  thoughts  from  it,  I  find  in  a  minute  or  two  that  they 
have  worked  back  to  it.  And  yet  the  mind  produces  nothing. 
When  the  buzzing  ceases  no  ideas  remain.  This  buzzing  is  not 
a  good  thing,  but  I  don't  know  how  to  stop  it.  When  I  turn 
for  relaxation  to  poetry,  I  seem  to  have  no  interest  in  it.  When 
I  think  of  higher  things  I  seem  to  have  lost  all  power  of  emotion." 

' JSel  mezzo' 

"16.  6.  '81.  I  was  lately  examining  some  old  papers  I 
came  upon.  They  were  scribblings  of  mine  in  1853,  twenty- 
eight  years  ago.  I  could  not  help  feeling  vexed  that  they  were 
so  good.  How  little  I  seem  to  have  gained  by  eight-and- 
twenty  years  of  manhood  !  The  first  twenty  years  of  life  are 
the  really  most  important  after  all.  I  suppose  I  have  learnt 
something  since,  but  I  hardly  know  what.  I  am  different  now, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  seems  to  me  a  difference  of  temperament 
rather  than  of  knowledge  or  wisdom. 

"To-day  I  have  been  looking  at  books  and  trying  to  ar- 
range tliem  and  settle  what  to  keep  and  what  to  throw  away. 
The  young  man  seems  to  have  unlimited  time  before  him ;  the 
twenty  years  he  looks  back  upon  seem  an  age  and  he  thinks  he 
has  twice  that  time  before  him  as  his  working  time.  He  there- 
fore gets  together  material  of  all  kinds  and  has  no  doubt  the 
time  will  come  when  he  will  find  use  for  all.  But  at  fifty  one 
sees  that  the  time  will  never  come.  IJfe  wliich  looked  so  long 
in  ]:)rospect,  looks  short  indeed  when  two-thirds  are  known  to 
be  over,  and  one  thinks  the  end  may  be  nearer  still.    One  looks 


92  7?.  //.  Quick 

at  one's  books  no  longer  as  one's  own,  but  with  a  consciousness 
that  they  will  soon  pass  into  other  hands.  At  one  time  if  I 
bought  an  old  book  I  struck  out  the  name  of  the  previous  owner 
before  entering  my  own,  but  long  since  I  have  given  this  up 
and  simply  written  my  own  name  below  the  other.  The  life  of 
a  book  is  far  longer  than  ours,  and  the  name  in  it  simply  states 
who  has  the  present  use  of  it.  I  may  remark  by  the  way  that 
in  reading  in  the  British  Museum  I  have  often  come  across 
small  joking  remarks  scribbled  in  books  two  centuries  or  more 
ago,  and  there  is  something  pathetic  in  thus  overhearing  as  it 
were  an  observation  made  by  someone  who  has  been  so  long 
silent. 

'•  When  one  has  fairly  realised  that  the  summit  is  passed,  that 
there  can  be  little  improvement  and  will  be  much  falling  off, 
the  great  danger  is  the  danger  of  becoming  slack  and  lazy  and 
indifferent.  One's  energy  naturally  decreases,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  great  stimulus  to  energy  —  ambition  —  is  entirely  with- 
drawn. Why  should  one  struggle  for  success  when  one  doesn't 
care  a  button  about  success?  I  know  enough  of  the  public 
and  its  opinion  to  have  a  supreme  contempt  for  it.  The  public 
runs  after  everyone  that  can  amuse  it  or  in  any  way  excite  it. 
A  good  many  years  ago  Seeley  managed  to  do  this  with  '  Ecce 
Homo,'  but  when  the  exciting  mystery  was  over  nobody  cared 
to  read  him.  For  my  part  I  have  not  the  smallest  sympathy 
with  the  incessant  thought  of  the  pubUc,  which  I  find  especially 
strong  among  Americans.  Just  at  present  my  experience  makes 
me  cynical.  I  fancied  that  I  was  pretty  well  known  as  a  good 
authority  on  education,  and  that  if  I  offered  a  really  better 
training  for  children  than  they  get  generally  I  should  have 
no  end  of  applications  from  parents.  But  I  find  that  any 
humbug  can  do  with  the  help  of  puffing  and  lying  what  I  can- 
not do  with  every  other  advantage.  So  I  have  '  a  down  '  on 
the  pubhc.  This  acts  in  combination  with  my  slackening 
energy  to  make  me  let  things  slide.  But  it  is  strange  that  the 
highest  motives  should  need  to  be  helped  by  inferior  motives. 


A  retrospect  ^  93 

That  no  one  seems  to  want  one  is  really  no  reason  why  one 
should  not  try  to  be  as  useful  as  possible.  To  one's  own 
Master  one  standeth  or  falleth,  and  happily  the  pubhc  is  not 
my  master.  Still  faith  is  so  cold  that  the  visible  affects  one  far 
more  certainly  than  the  invisible.  If  I  had  to  preach  to  a 
number  of  workhouse  people  or  to  children,  I  probably  should 
take  little  pains  about  my  sermon.  If  I  had  to  preach  to  an 
audience  of  professional  men,  I  should  probably  take  a  great  deal 
of  pains.  And  yet  the  pains  would  probably  be  much  better 
bestowed  upon  the  paupers  or  the  children  than  on  the  parsons 
or  doctors.  But  the  consciousness  that  I  should  be  exposed 
to  slighting  remarks,  if  I  did  badly,  in  the  one  case  and  not  in 
the  other,  somehow  would  weigh  with  me  more  decidedly  than 
any  care  for  the  welfare  of  the  people  I  preached  to  or  any 
thoughts  of  the  Master's  service. 

"  2  Feb.  '82 So  I  am  in  danger  of  losing  the  equable  spirits 

that  I  had  and  of  becoming  somewhat  morose.  Still  though  I 
have  only  an  old  man  and  six  rather  common-place  small  boys 
to  improve  (not  the  material  one  would  choose)  I  may  manage  to 
do  something  with  that.    At  any  rate  I  must  beware  of  grumbling. 

"  The  interest  I  take  in  teaching  small  boys  never  seems  to 
decrease,  and  in  all  elementary  work  I  keep  finding  new  things 
which  take  my  fancy  and  please  the  boys.  I  don't  ever  find 
that  I  miss  the  excitement  of  numbers." 

"27  March  '82.  Now  that  the  pressure  of  the  weekly  lecture 
at  Cambridge  is  taken  off  I  hope  to  recover  to  some  extent  the 
essayist  attitude  of  mind.  I  usually  spend  my  life  under  con- 
ditions similar  to  those  of  the  London  tramp.  The  policeman 
Duty  shows  himself  the  instant  I  want  to  stop  and  observe 
anything  and  orders  me  to  '  move  on.'  So  I  never  have  a 
leisurely  mind,  and  yet  one  cannot  obseroc  without  leisure.  I 
wish  I  could  find  time  for  reading,  for  when  one  has  been  in 
the  society  of  men  like  Montaigne  and  Helps  (alike  in  their 
essayism,  tho'  in  little  else)  one  catches  their  way  of  looking  at 
things  and  can  think  about  one's  surroundings. 


94  ^.  H.  Quick 

"  4  April  '82.  The  young  savages  have  gradually  become 
civilised  ;  at  meals  they  are  only  too  quiet,  and  their  talk 
when  out  for  a  walk  though  still  uninteresting  is  quite  in- 
offensive. And  this  change  has  been  wrought  without  any 
repression  and  no  punishment  of  any  kind,  except  when 
they  have  been  reported  by  the  usher." 

Scdbergh 

In  i8(S3  Quick  accepted  the  living  of  Sedbergh,  Yorks.,  to 
which  he  was  presented  by  the  Council  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge.  The  net  value  of  the  living  is  set  down  in 
Crockford  at  ^360  and  the  population  at  1800,  and  as  the 
parish  is  a  straggling  one  a  curate  is  almost  a  necessity.  The 
vacancy  was  not  likely  to  attract  any  Fellow  or  ex- Fellow  of  the 
College,  and  the  Council  felt  themselves  fortunate  in  finding 
a  member  of  the  College  who  had  made  his  mark  in  literature 
and  served  the  University  as  Lecturer  willing  and  able  to 
accept  the  post.  To  Quick  Sedbergh  offered  many  attractions. 
Though  undoubtedly  his  strongest  bias  was  towards  teaching 
and  all  connected  with  education,  yet,  as  has  been  seen,  he 
never  even  during  his  Harrow  mastership  entirely  dropped  the 
distinctive  work  of  the  ministry.  'I'o  his  kindly  and  sympathetic 
nature  it  was  always  more  of  a  pleasure  than  a  duty  to  visit 
the  sick  and  aged,  and  though  to  the  last  the  composition  of  a 
sermon  was  to  him  a  laborious  and  often  a  painful  process,  yet 
he  had  a  hankering  for  preaching,  a  consciousness  that  he  had 
within  him  thoughts  worth  expressing,  and  that  possibly  effec- 
tiveness as  a  preacher  would  come  into  practice. 

The  place  itself,  too,  had  strong  attractions  for  him.  The 
town  consists  of  one  long  straggling  street  that  fringes  the  base 
of  Winder,  a  l)reezy  hill  from  which  you  catch  glimpses  of  the 
Lake  country  to  the  north.  Below  the  town  and  parallel  with 
the  street  runs  the  Rawthey,  a  tributary  of  the  Lune,  and  at 
right  angles  to  the  south  the  broad  and  smiling  valley  of  the 
Dent.     The  Vicarage  stooil  just  beyond  the  town  a*  the  east 


Sedbergh  95 

end,  a  tumble-down  old  house  which  has  since  been  sold, 
but  very  quaint  and  picturesque,  with  a  prime  old-fashioned 
garden  and  a  paddock.  It  seemed  an  ideal  home  for  one 
whose  highest  ambition  was  'a  philosopher's  life  in  the  quiet 
country  ways,'  who  loved  nature  and  beautiful  scenery  and 
wanted  no  other  society  than  that  of  his  own  family  and 
his  books.  Lastly  there  was  the  attraction  of  the  old 
and  famous  grammar  school,  of  which  the  Vicar  is  ex  officio  a 
governor.  With  this  and  his  own  Church  schools  he  looked 
forward  to  still  keeping  in  touch  with  the  practice  of  education 
while  pursuing  at  his  leisure  the  theory. 

Such  was  the  distant  prospect.  The  Diary  will  shew  how 
different  the  reality  proved.  He  soon  found  that  his  duties  as 
a  parish  priest  absorbed  all  his  time  and  energies,  and  that  he 
enjoyed  far  less  of  learned  leisure  than  at  Guildford.  And  the 
worst  disappointment  to  him  was  that  this  sacrifice  seemed  to 
him  without  compensation.  Could  he  have  seen  the  fruit  of 
his  labour  and  felt  that  he  was  a  moral  and  spiritual  force  in 
his  parish,  he  would  have  let  pedagogics  and  research  go  by 
the  board.  As  it  was,  his  attempt  to  waken  into  life  a  sleepy 
hollow  and  to  reform  time-honoured  abuses  provoked  bitter 
opposition  and  enhsted  httle  sympathy.  Yorkshiremen  are 
proverbially  cautious  and  suspicious  of  strangers.  Dissenters, 
who  formed  the  majority  of  his  parishioners,  could  not  at  first 
make  out  a  parson  who  in  the  matter  of  charities  and  parochial 
ofifices  shewed  a  perfect  indifference  between  churchmanship 
and  dissent,  and  suspected  the  simplest  and  most  straight- 
forward of  vicars  since  Dr  Primrose  of  some  Macchiavellian 
design.  Church-folk  on  the  other  hand,  when  their  accounts 
were  scrutinised  and  their  prerogatives  questioned,  regarded 
him  as  a  traitor  in  the  camp.  To  give  a  single  instance,  he 
found  the  teaching  in  the  Church  schools  most  unsatisfactory 
and  inefficient  and,  rightly  or  wrongly,  traced  the  cause  to  the 
incompetency  of  the  Headmaster.  He  pressed  upon  the 
Managers  the  necessity  of  a   change,  and  when  he  failed  to 


96  R.  H.  Quick 

carry  his  point  resigned  the  Chairmansliip.  This  might  have 
been  overlooked  as  a  pardonable  fit  of  temper,  but  when  he 
transferred  his  interest  to  the  British  schools  and  refused  to 
preach  the  annual  sermon  and  have  a  collection  for  the  Church 
schools,  on  the  ground  that  he  could  not  plead  for  an  institu- 
tion that  was  managed  in  a  way  of  which  he  disapproved,  the 
indignation  of  the  Managers  knew  no  bounds,  and  they 
threatened  an  appeal  to  the  Bishop.  It  was  about  this  time 
that  a  good  old  lady,  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Church,  is  s:i;d 
to  have  remarked,  '  I  can't  help  liking  Mr  Quick,  he  is  so 
kind  and  gentle,  but  I  do  believe  he  has  a  devil! '  The  fault 
was  not  all  on  one  side.  If  the  Sedberghians  were  slow  to 
appreciate  sterling  worth  and  honesty.  Quick  was  too  ready  to 
take  offence,  and,  whenever  he  saw  or  fancied  he  saw  injustice 
or  wrong-doing,  to  tilt  at  it  without  counting  the  cost.  He  was 
singularly  wanting  in  tact  and  he  could  not  suffer  fools  gladly. 
In  time  he  and  his  parishioners  got  to  know  one  another  better 
and  they  parted  with  mutual  regret  and  good  will.  The  four 
years  at  Sedbergh  were  not  on  the  whole  unfruitful  or  unhappy, 
but  they  were  full  of  small  worries  and  trials  which  absorbed  all 
the  time  and  energy  that  Quick  had  hoped  to  devote  to  his 
favourite  study,  and  the  only  educational  outcome  of  this 
period  is  the  Notes  on  the  mental  development  of  his  infant 
daughter. 

"13  Sept.  '83.  My  life  lately  has  taken  a  complete  change, 
such  as  to  remind  one  of  the  stratified  life  of  the  Jesuits.  I 
have  been  in  Sedbergh  now  nearly  two  and  a  half  months  and 
in  that  time  I  have  hardly  looked  into  a  book.  Living  much 
in  the  open  air  I  find  myself  much  the  stronger  in  health  for  it, 
and  as  I  have  had  to  preach  I  have  not  been  thoughtless." 

"  4  Oct.  '83.  To  some  extent  I  am  suffering  from  reaction 
after  being  delighted  with  Sedbergh.  I  see  such  hosts  of  small 
matters  that  want  mending  in  some  sense  or  other,  and  all  my 
time  and  thoughts  go  to  attending  to  a  round  of  minutiae 
which   must   however   be    looked    after.      The    consequence 


Scdbcrgh  97 

is,  I  never  find  time  for  what  is  important.  More  and 
more  I  am  impressed  with  the  value  of  money.  It  seems 
the  only  force  that  acts  properly  in  common  life.  I  find 
something  amiss  about  the  vicarage-house.  I  tell  a  workman 
to  attend  to  it,  and  soon  after  I  find  he  has  attended  to  it. 
Hut  when  no  payment  in  money  is  to  follow  one  speaks  in 
vain.  Not  being  affected  by  the  money  motive  myself  I  am 
puzzled  by  its  apparent  omnipotence  elsewhere.  But  after  all, 
though  money  payments  seem  a  necessary  condition  to  ensure 
regular  care  and  promptitude,  money  is  not  grasped  at  bv  the 
workpeople  here;  they  seem  to  think  of  the  work  in  and  for 
itself.  But  they  will  do  nothing  except  as  a  matter  of  business, 
i.e.  nothing  they  are  not  paid  for  doing." 

A  Quiet  Day 

"25.  10. '83.  Yesterday  I  spent  at  Kirkby  Lonsdale,  at  a 
sort  of  Retreat  for  the  clergy  (a '  quiet  day  '  is,  I  find,  the  correct 
term).  I  have  at  times  been  suspicious  of  these  Retreats  as 
fostering  a  fictitious  frame  of  mind.  Devotees  of  all  religions 
have  been  able  to  work  themselves  up  to  religious  frenzy  bv 
cutting  themselves  off  from  the  ordinary  thoughts  and  occupa- 
tions of  life  and  letting  their  minds  dwell  on  their  peculiar 
doctrines.  But  if  our  faith  be  true  it  should  occupy  our  minds 
far  more  than  it  does,  and  we  let  ourselves  get  so  absorbed  by 
the  daily  round,  the  common  task,  that  some  effort  is  needed 
to  look  at  things  as  they  are.  For  myself  I  must  own  that  I 
am  not  meditative,  and  were  I  to  attempt  to  go  through  the 
exercises  prescribed  by  Ignatius  Loyola  I  should  probably  sleep 
half  the  time.  But  I  admit  that  when  one  listens  to  a  mar 
like  Edward  Bickersteth  one  feels  oneself  raised  to  a  higher 
spiritual  level." 

"  5  Nov.  '83.  So  long  as  we  are  not  contented  with  things 
as  they  are,  and  are  not  only  not  contented  but  are  trying  to 
mend  them,  there  is  hope.  No  human  being  in  his  senses 
would  be  contented  with  things  as  they  are  here,  and  I  trust  I 

H 


98  R.  H.  Quick 

shall  make  not  a  few  efforts  to  mend  them  ;  so  I  should  feel 
hopeful.  But  I  hav^e  no  longer  the  energy  of  a  young  man, 
and  there  is  a  terrible  danger  of  my  settling  down  into  the  con- 
dition of  my  predecessor,  who  made  it  the  great  object  of  his 
life  to  keep  things  as  they  were.  This  sort  of  conservatism  is 
deadly,  for  the  tree  will  not  live  if  it  is  allowed  to  put  forth  no 
new  shoots." 

Governing  Bodies  of  Gj-amiuar  Schools 

As  Rector  of  Sedbergh  Quick  was  ex  officio  a  Governor  of 
the  Grammar  School,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  he  became 
the  most  active,  if  not  the  most  influential,  member  of  that 
body.  His  experience  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
constitution  of  these  bodies  (and  Sedbergh  is  typical  of  a  large 
class)  is  by  no  means  ideal  and  may  lead  to,  or  at  any  rate  fail 
to  prevent,  serious  abuses.  The  difficulty,  as  it  appears  to 
him,  is  to  supply  the  trustee  with  sufficient  motive  for  doing 
his  duty.  He  is  generally  appointed  for  life,  and  there  is  no 
one  to  whom  he  has  to  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship. 
The  prevailing  custom  is  to  elect  upon  the  Board  any  landed 
proprietor  or  nobleman  who  lives  in  the  neighbourhood.  Such 
men  have  rarely  the  leisure  to  attend  meetings  regularly,  and 
when  they  do  come  (so  Quick  complains)  they  give  themselves 
airs.  The  consequence  is  that  the  business  of  the  Trust  is  in 
most  cases  done  in  a  perfunctory  way  by  the  paid  clerk.  The 
obvious  remedy  would  seem  to  be  some  form  of  popular 
representation,  either  direct  or  indirect. 

Work  and  Leisure 

"  23.  7.  'S5.  As  I  grow  old  my  capacity  for  the  active 
business  of  life  (never  very  great)  seems  to  grow  considerably 
less,  while  my  desire  (and,  I  fancy,  my  ability)  to  theorise  on 
life  seems  to  increase.  But  my  time  is  so  consumed  with  small 
things  that  I  never  get  free  and  never  feel  free  to  think  and 


Suspiria  99 

write.  I  am  coming  more  and  more  to  admire  blind  energy  as 
Carlyle  admired  it.  k  man  like  M.  with  splendid  energy  for 
work  gets  through  all  he  has  to  do  and  then  has  leisure,  which  I 
never  have.  But  then  it  sometimes  happens  that  when  leisure 
comes  to  such  men  as  M.  they  don't  know  what  to  do  with 
it.  There  is  no  world  of  thought  opened  to  them  either  by 
their  own  mind  or  by  books.  Which  is  worse,  to  know  of 
a  world  of  ideas  into  which  one  has  not  energy  to  penetrate,  or 
to  have  plenty  of  energy  but  to  be  like  Johnson's  school  girls 
'unidea'd?'  The  fact  that  strikes  me  most  just  now  is  the 
practically  limitless  number  of  things  which  to  some  extent  one 
ought  to  do  and  also  another  limitless  number  of  things  which 
to  some  extent  one  would  like  to  do.  Among  them  few  stand 
out  as  things  that  must  be  done,  few  are  so  attractive  that  one 
is  tempted  to  give  up  everything  else  in  order  to  do  them.  A 
selection  has  to  be  made.  At  best  only  some  of  the  things  can 
be  done,  and  in  point  of  fact  chance  seems  to  determine  which 
shall  be  done  and  which  left  undone. 

"13  Oct.  '85.  I  should  indeed  be  ungrateful  if  I  were  dis- 
contented with  life.  I  have  blessings  of  every  kind  and  am 
extremely  happy.  But  am  I  making  all  that  I  might  out  of 
life?  There  seems  to  me  a  want  of  definite  aim  in  my  life,  and 
consequently  a  want  of  persistent  and  consistent  effort.  Life 
such  as  mine  seems  to  dwindle  into  the  common-place.  I 
seem  always  doing  little  things,  and  there  is  no  reserve  of 
thought  and  prayer  that  might  raise  these  little  things  to  a 
higher  level.  Faith  in  God  involves  faith  in  an  endless  ascent. 
I  fail  to  raise  others  because  I  do  not  ascend  myself.  I  have 
not  proper  belief  in  spiritual  forces.  I  am  too  conscious  of  the 
weakness  of  what  is  seen  and  not  conscious  enough  of  the 
strength  of  what  is  not  seen. 

"  For  instance,  I  go  to  the  Sunday  School  and  there  I  find 
a  number  of  children  engaged  chiefly  in  cracking  nuts  and 
throwing  about  the  shells.  I  don't  see  how  they  can  get 
much  good  out  of  this  any  way,  or  how  that  school  can   be 


lOO  R.  H.  Quick 

improved,  as  few  will  undertake  a  class,  and  those  few  of 
course  have  little  skill  as  teachers.  My  discipline  would  be 
better,  but  I  should  probably  drive  away  the  children  by  it. 
The  ordinary  observer  is  unconscious  of  the  faults  ;  persons 
like  myself  are  shut  up  by  them  and  fail  to  care  about  the 
school.  I  suppose  the  right-minded  man  would  see  the  faults 
but  would  be  conscious  of  some  good  attained  notwithstanding. 
"  I  wish  we  believed  in  spiritual  forces  as  the  scientific  folk 
believe  in  physical  forces.  The  other  day  the  huge  rock  that 
hemmed  the  passage  between  Long  Island  and  New  York 
was  blasted.  Between  nine  and  ten  years  had  been  spent 
in  charging  it.  When  all  was  ready  a  little  girl  of  eleven 
years  old  pressed  a  button  and  caused  the  explosion.  No 
doubt  there  has  often  been  a  long  preparation  in  the  spiritual 
world  and  some  word  or  action  of  ours  brings  about  an  effect 
which  seems  miraculous." 

Ncaring  the  station 

"  15.  5.  '86.  Perhaps  before  the  end  of  my  journey  I  may 
be  able  to  write  some  useful  essays,  working  up  the  materials  in 
these  note-books.  Now  I  am  getting  old  my  style  will  naturally 
get  more  diffuse,  and  up  to  the  present  time  it  has  suffered,  so 
far  as  I  can  judge,  from  stiffness.  It  is  the  more  chatty  and 
diffuse  style  that  makes  most  impression  on  ordinary  readers. 
The  question  is  whether  I  shall  ever  find  time.  Perhaps  the 
train  has  already  begun  to  slacken  speed  and  the  brake  will 
soon  be  put  on,  showing  the  station  is  not  far  off.  Till  lately 
one  has  thought  of  the  station  as  at  an  immeasurable  distance. 
It  does  not  seem  so  now.  What  would  one's  feelings  be  if 
one  believed  it  to  be  the  terminus?  As  it  is,  the  nearer  one 
gets  to  the  station,  the  more  one's  thoughts  go  beyond  it. 
Like  other  members  of  the  old-fashioned  sect  still  known  by 
the  name  given  them  at  Antioch,  I  don't  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  terminus." 


Advancino;  Years  loi 


<b 


Tidy  ins; 

"15  June,  '86.  I  have  spent  all  yesterday  and  this  raorninsf 
in  looking  over  books  and  papers.  Strange  vistas  of  the  past 
rise  up  before  me.  I  get  a  general  impression  of  the  immensity 
of  things,  and  see  how  much  we  must  give  up  for  the  sake  of 
concentrating  our  short  lives  and  still  shorter  energies  on  work 
in  which  we  may  get  something  done. 

"  A  man  might  almost  be  defined  as  a  bundle  of  interests. 
Everything  depends  on  the  variety  and  intensity  of  our  in- 
terests. Does  the  intensity  vary  inversely  with  the  variety? 
I  think  not.  But  I  have  had  to  let  some  of  my  interests  die 
of  atrophy.  I  have,  I  believe,  sufiicient  interest  to  make  me 
very  learned  in  geography  or  the  lives  and  discoveries  of 
travellers.  If  ever  I  read  for  amusement  I  should  read  auto- 
biographies and  travels,  but  I  never  read  a  book  without  some 
more  or  less  business  object." 

Keeping  decks  clear 

"  My  father  used  to  say  that  one  of  his  best  points  as  a 
man  of  business  was  that  he  never  let  stock  hang  on  hand. 
If  it  would  not  sell  at  the  price  he  asked  or  if  the  market 
went  down,  he  never  waited  till  he  could  find  a  man  ready 
to  give  his  price  or  till  the  market  recovered.  He  would  keep 
the  decks  clear  and  not  get  hampered  with  the  old  sturt'. 

"  I  think  this  would  be  a  most  useful  maxim  for  life  gen- 
erally. We  are  so  apt  to  store  up  things  we  viav  want  or 
things  that  may  come  in  handy.  But  very  few  of  them  do 
turn  to  account,  and  when  we  want  a  thing  the  chances  are 
we  can't  find  it,  though  it  may  have  been  worrying  us  to 
decide  where  it  is  to  live  till  within  a  few  weeks  of  our  wanting 
it.  Even  of  books  one  keeps  a  vast  deal  too  many,  and  has 
not  time  to  look  at  one  per  cent,  of  them." 

"12  July,  '86.  The  coming  event  of  my  resigning  this 
living,  which  is  now  quite  settled  in  my  mind,  throws  its  shadow 
before,  and  at  times  gives  me  a  feeling  almost  of  leisure." 


I02  R.  H.  Oiiick 


Leaving  Sedbergh 

"6  Jan.  '87.  I  have  to-day  sent  letter  to  the  Bishop  of 
Ripon,  which  completes  my  resignation  of  the  living  of  Sed- 
bergh. The  main  things  that  I  hope  to  gain  from  the  change 
are  :  ist,  relief  from  overwhelming  responsibility.  2nd,  time 
for  thought. 

"  As  for  the  first,  I  have  at  times  felt  the  responsibility  far 
more  than  I  expected.  I  am  responsible  for  the  religious 
teaching  of  all  these  people.  Perhaps  the  comfort  which 
people  so  readily  give  themselves,  '  I'm  not  worse  than  my 
neighbours,'  is  not  unreasonable  in  this  case.  Tried  by  any 
standard  based  on  the  ideal  I  am  fearfully  wanting,  but  shall 
I  benefit  the  parish  by  my  resignation  ?  I  might  do  it  a  great 
injury,  and  though  I  might  also  benefit  it,  this  probability 
seems  to  me  not  so  great  as  the  other. 

"Then  as  to  thought.  W.  H.  Payne  lays  it  down  that 
thought  and  feeling  vary  inversely.  This  seems  to  me  a  very 
mischievous  error.  In  some  of  its  functions  the  intellect  may 
be  hindered  by  feeling,  especially  in  acting  judicially,  but  in 
other  functions  thought  finds  its  motive  force  in  feeling.  The 
great  enemy,  as  I  have  found,  to  thought  is  a  constant  stream 
of  petty  engagements — an  enemy  to  feeling  as  well.  Of  course 
some  employments,  such  as  preaching,  may  and  should  lead 
to  thought,  though  even  these  sometimes  get  discharged  in 
a  mechanical  and  thoughtless  flishion ;  but  thought  for  an 
immediate  purpose  is  always  of  a  different  kind  to  the  ob- 
server's thought,  the  thought  which  comes  to  the  essayist  or 
theorist  turn  of  mind  :  and  all  the  lower  occupations  stop 
thought  altogether. 

"  Now  it  seems  to  me  tlint  thought  on  theory  is  much 
wanted.  W.  Welch  says  I  am  too  theoretical.  I  seem  to 
myself  not  theoretical  enougli,  though  1  am  perhaps  more 
so  than  the  ordinary  iMigHshuian.     We  want  to  have  an  ideal 


Leaving  Sedbergh  103 

before  us,  and  to  see  how  we  may  approach  or  at  least 
journey  towards  it.  My  efforts  at  this  kind  of  thinking,  both 
for  myself  and  others,  have  been  impeded  by  the  time  con- 
sumed in  '  running '  myself,  family  and  parish.  I  want  more 
time.  Shall  I  get  it?  Shall  I  make  good  use  of  it  if  I  do? 
"  I  am  getting  to  understand  parish  work  now  my  parish 
work  is  over.  The  first  requisite  is  that  a  man  should  feel 
that  he  has  a  gospel  or  good  news  for  his  people.  I  am 
afraid  many  men  think  they  have  in  point  of  fact  very  bad 
news  indeed  for  the  great  majority  of  them.  I  do  not  think 
so.  The  love  of  God  declared  in  His  Son  seems  to  me  the 
only  good  news  which  can  hold  its  own  against  all  adverse 
phenomena.  For  many  years  I  did  not  feel  that  degree  of 
confidence  in  the  faith  which  is  absolutely  necessary  before 
one  can  preach  it  heartily,  but  my  difficulty  has,  thank  God, 
decreased.  Next,  the  parish  parson  must  feel  a  genuine  in- 
terest in  the  individuals  of  his  flock.  Here  has  been  my 
great  deficiency.  I  have  not  felt  enough  concern  about  in- 
dividuals. If  1  knew  a  man  was  given  to  drink,  I  might 
perhaps,  when  occasion  offered,  speak  to  him  about  it,  but 
I  have  not  felt  that  it  was  a  personal  concern  of  mine  to 
rescue  the  man  by  all  the  means  I  could  adopt,  and  not  to 
rest  till  I  had  reclaimed  him.  And  not  only  with  those  who 
were  going  wrong.  My  interest  should  have  been  extended 
to  each  and  every  one.  To  do  this  I  must  have  lived  for 
the  parish  and  nothing  but  the  parish." 

Rcdhill 

On  resigning  the  .  living  of  Sedbergh  Quick  settled  at 
Redhill.  This  was  his  last  '  flitting.'  He  rented  a  pleasant 
little  house,  with  a  fair  sized  garden  and  small  conservatory 
attached,  just  on  the  edge  of  Earlswood  Common,  and  named 
Earlswood  Cottage.  The  place  exactly  suited  him,  perfect 
country,  yet  within  easy  reach  of  London  ;  not  that  he  often 


I04  R-  H.  Quick 

went  up  to  town,  but  friends  were  constantly  running  down 
to  see  him.  It  was  a  haven  of  rest  after  a  life,  not  indeed 
of  storm  and  stress,  but  of  grinding  work  and  chronic  over- 
pressure. At  last  he  was  his  own  master,  rid  of  all  except 
self-imposed  responsibilities,  free  to  work  when  he  liked  and 
how  he  liked.  For  a  while  hoc  ipsum  delectabat,  nihil  agere, 
but  he  was  too  thorough  a  Teuton  to  relish  for  more  than 
a  few  weeks  the  dolce  far  niente  of  a  Roman  man  of  letters. 
Nor  had  he  to  seek  for  occupation.  Besides  the  pedagogic 
studies  which  he  could  now  resume,  work  of  various  kinds 
poured  in  upon  him  by  the  natural  force  of  gravitation.  A 
leisured  parson  is  a  godsend  in  a  neighbourhood,  and  a 
Sunday  rarely  passed  without  some  call  which  Quick  was 
far  too  good-natured  to  refuse.  There  were  numerous  re- 
quests from  Teachers'  Associations,  Training  Colleges  and 
Schools,  to  lecture  to  them.  This  was  work  after  his  own 
heart  except  when  it  entailed  his  staying  a  night  or  more 
away  from  home.  But  his  chief  energies  were  absorbed  in 
putting  the  finishing  touches  to  the  second  edition  of  Edu- 
cational Reformers  and  seeing  it  through  the  press.  To  this 
period,  too,  belongs  his  edition  of  Mule  aster's  Positions  (pub- 
lished in  1888),  a  laborious  piece  of  drudgery,  considering 
that  every  word,  and  even  the  spelling  of  every  word,  was, 
with  the  assistance  of  his  wife,  carefully  checked.  The  Ap- 
pendix, deahng  with  Mulcaster's  life  and  writings,  entailed 
considerable  research  and  correspondence.  Besides,  a  month 
rarely  passed  without  his  firing  off  some  half-dozen  Occasional 
Notes  or  a  short  article  for  the  Journal  of  Education.  Yet 
another  side  of  his  Redhill  life  is  pourtrayed  by  M.  Parmentier, 
who  then  made  his  acquaintance. 

'At  Redhill  Quick  passed  a  laborious  life.  The  day  was  about 
equally  divided  between  his  pedagogic  and  literary  studies  and 
the  hours  devoted  to  his  friends  and  correspondents.  The  four 
walls  of  his  study  were  lined  with  book-shelves  reaching  to  the 
ceiling.     Among  his  library  were  to  be  found  the  first  editions  of 


Redhill  105 

Elyot,  Mulcaster,  Brinsley,  Comenius,  Hoole,  &c.^  The  nucleus 
of  this  collection  had  been  left  him  by  his  old  friend  Joseph 
Payne.  His  visitors  had  difificulty  in  finding  a  seat.  Chairs, 
arm-chairs  and  sofa  were  strewed  with  books,  pamphlets  and 
reviews.  Travelling  scholars  of  all  nationalities  knocked  at  his 
door,  some  in  quest  of  information,  others  requiring  an  in- 
troduction or  a  recommendation  for  some  post,  or  not  rarely 
pecuniary  assistance.  As  he  was  in  his  own  Fach  the  most 
widely  known  of  English  writers,  the  number  of  his  corre- 
spondents both  at  home  and  abroad  increased  from  year  to 
year.  We  Frenchmen  must  be  ever  grateful  for  his  friendly 
courtesy.  Great  was  his  joy  whenever  he  learned  that  some 
fresh  student  in  our  country  was  occupying  himself  with  the 
history  of  education.  He  happened  to  learn  through  Mr  Bass 
MuUinger  that  I  was  in  search  of  ouv rages  de  premiere  main 
on  English  pedagogics.  Quick  at  once  wrote  to  call  my 
attention  to  two  rare  and  curious  works  I  was  not  likely  to 
have  come  across.  Since  then  I  had  often  occasion  to  con- 
sult him  and  I  never  found  him  fail  me.  Less  than  a  year 
before  his  death  he  was  so  extraordinarily  obliging  as  to  lend 
me,  for  as  long  as  I  required  it,  a  volume  that  could  not  be 
procured  for  love  or  money,  the  Ludits  Literarius  of  Brinsley. 
It  was  the  copy  from  which  he  himself  intended  to  prepare  a 
new  edition.     That  was  Quick  all  over.' 

Earlsivood  Cottage,  Redhill 

"8  July,  '87.  For  some  time  past  I  have  done  nothing 
but  '  move.'  In  this  state  of  flux  all  mental  vision  becomes 
blurred  and  bewildering.  No  doubt  even  moving  may  be 
done  well,  i.e.  with  method  and  promptitude,  but  I  do  i^t  badly, 
and  can  only  admire  the  energy  and  skill  it  brings  out  in  others 
—  e.g.  in  my  wife. 

1  After  his  death  the  pedagogic  portion  of  his  Hbrary  was  handed  over 
by  Mrs  Quick  to  the  Teachers'  Guild,  and  is  now  kept  at  76,  Gower  Street, 
in  a  separate  bookcase  labelled  "  Quick  Loan  Collection." 


io6  R.  //.   Onick 

"One  would  like  to  think  of  life  in  constant  progress. 
Physically  of  course  the  law  for  men  over  fifty  is  retrogression. 
Perhaps  some  of  the  mental  powers,  (^.<^.  the  powers  of  acquisi- 
tion, fall  off,  but  we  hope  to  gain  in  the  net  outcome  of  our 
experience  —  in  wisdom.  But  we  seem  so  different  at  different 
times  !  Our  wisdom  consists  in  right  and  clear  mental  vision, 
clear  not  only  within  its  limits,  but  so  clear  as  to  perceive  the 
limits  themselves.  But  when  we  have  trained  ourselves  to 
observe  and  judge  of  a  particular  set  of  facts,  the  outward 
circumstances  of  our  life  may  change  and  we  may  seem  like  a 
sailor  on  shore.  Also  we  vary  in  ourselves  from  hour  to  hour. 
When  fagged  or  depressed  we  find  nothing  in  our  consciousness 
that  raises  us  or  can  raise  us  above  the  meanest  banality.  It 
requires  an  act  of  faith  to  admit  that  anything  more  exists. 
And  life  spent  for  a  little  while  in  any  engrossing  occupation, 
still  more  in  any  engrossing  care  or  anxiety,  seems  to  destroy  our 
former  selves  and  bury  them  as  fossils  in  a  bygone  stratum. 
Still  the  reality  must  be  very  different.     Wordsvi'orth  says, 

*  Through  love,  through  hope,  and  faith's  transcendent  dower, 
We  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know.' 

Let  us  trust  we  are  wiser ;  we  certainly  are  much  more  than  we 
know. 

"  In  going  over  my  possessions,  especially  my  books,  I  find 
old  clues  that  lead  me  back  in  memory  to  countless  thoughts 
and  efforts  of  days  gone  by.  All  these  have  passed  away,  but 
the  effect  of  them  remains,  and  is  a  part  of  my  present  self. 

"  It  takes  at  least  two-thirds  of  life  to  find  out  how  little  time 
we  really  have  for  thinking  to  purpose  ;  it  takes  still  more  than 
two-thy-ds  to  find  how  little  energy.  In  looking  ahead  we  think 
there  will  be  such  and  such  time.  Perhaps  some  outward  let 
destroys  this  for  the  purpose  intended  ;  still  more  likely  some 
slight  ailment  or  exhaustion  deprives  us  of  the  necessary  energy. 

"In  our  present  state  the  machinery  of  life  is  far  too  ex- 
travagant of  force.     When  one  has  arranged  one's  affairs,  seen 


Retrospective  107 

one's  callers  and  returnetl  tlieir  calls,  read  one's  letters  and 
answered  them,  there  is  hardly  any  time  left  except  for  meals 
and  for  sleep.  It  seems  to  me  a  clear  duty  to  reduce  all  these 
demands  on  one's  time.  As  life  goes  on  acquaintances  increase, 
connections  of  all  kinds  increase,  material  possessions  increase. 
Each  of  these  demands  every  now  and  then  a  little  time  and 
attention.  The  demand  is  a  small  one  and  surely  one  can 
spare  a  moment  or  two.  But  in  estimating  the  value  o{  a  y.  b 
you  must  take  into  account  the  size  of  b  as  well  as  of  a.  So 
long  as  a  has  any  value  not  less  than  i,  ab  may  be  a  formidable 
quantity  if  you  run  up  the  value  of  b.  Therefore  it  is  folly  to 
let  b  increase  indefinitely.  Keep  it  down,  even  at  the  risk  of 
seeming  neglectful  of  the  smaller  proprieties." 

Living  on  a  low  level 

"  It  is  difficult  to  do  easy  things  well,  such  at  least  is  my 
experience.  When  one  has  an  incessant  round  of  small  tasks, 
one  gets  into  an  effortless  way  of  going  through  them,  and  not 
only  does  not  do  them  so  well  as  one  might,  but  leads  the 
whole  of  one's  life  on  too  low  a  level.  In  short  one  turns 
Philistine  and  does  without  theory.  Of  course  the  best  escape 
is  by  means  of  religious  faith,  which  raises  trifles  into  duties 
and  requires  them  to  be  discharged  in  a  Christian  spirit.  The 
round  of  small  duties  would  not  pull  one  down  so,  if  one  took 
even  a  few  minutes  two  or  three  times  a  day  for  prayer  and 
recollection. 

"  Besides  this  I  think  one  should  spend  a  portion  of  the 
day  with  some  great  writer.  One  is  disinclined  to  rise  to  the 
thoughts  of  a  great  writer,  and  one  gets  to  prefer  incessant 
grind,  but  whenever  one  does  make  the  effort  one  feels  the 
better  for  it  and  gets  to  understand  one's  true  work.  How  few 
intimacies  one  has  with  great  writers  !  One  has  '  no  time  '  to 
cultivate  their  acquaintance.  But  one  finds  plenty  of  time  to 
read  newspapers  and  periodical  twaddle  which  does  one  no 
good  at  all." 


loS  R.  H.  Quick 


The  Nflfc  Books 

"  17.  8.  '87.  In  indexing  up  old  Note  Books  I  have  lately 
had  to  read  a  good  deal  of  my  own  writing.  It  is  extremely 
devoid  of  what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  '  charm.'  This  comes 
in  pari  {rom.  my  always  having  written  in  a  hurry.  My  object 
has  always  been  just  to  get  the  thing  ex])ressed  with  the  least 
possible  expenditure  of  time.  This  has  affected  not  only  the 
language;  it  has  affected  the  thought  too,  which  often  wants 
thinking  out.  But  one  claim  to  attention  my  writing  has. 
I  write  because  I  think.  Most  writers,  periodical  writers 
especially,  think  because  they  write.  This  it  is  that  makes  a 
vast  amount  both  of  writing  and  preaching  such  poor  stuff. 
It  is  the  business  of  the  writer  or  preacher  to  produce  a  certain 
amount  of  '  copv  '  or  speech,  so  he  often  has  to  think  ad  hoc ; 
and  often  ^\Vo  Begriffe  fehlen  11.  s.  w.'^  Even  the  best  writers 
when  forced  to  write  sometimes  come  to  the  end  of  their 
thoughts  and  are  compelled  to  furnish  sham  thought.  I  think 
I  see  this  in  Johnson's  Rambler.  Often  the  first  half  of  a 
paper  is  made  up  of  real  thought  and  the  other  half  of  sham." 

Brain-tiredness 

"  24.  8.  '87.  I  have  for  many  years  past  been  liable  to  get 
my  brain  tired  by  continuous  attention  to  any  one  thing. 
Several  years  ago  I  got  it  terribly  tired  over  editing  Locke,  but 
no  harm  came  of  it  and  I  was  not  obliged  to  knock  off.  I 
could  not  then  have  worked  as  I  worked  for  a  year  (1867-68) 
on  Educational  Reformers.  I  don't  remember  this  brain- 
tiredness  at  all  in  those  days,  though  I  worked  my  ten  hours  a 
day.  As  I  grow  old  I  find  that  it  is  more  and  more  easily  set 
up.  I  have  in  the  last  two  or  three  days  written  some 
Occasional  Notes  for  \h&  Journal  0/  Education,  axid  corrected  a 

1  Denn  etien  wo  Begriffe  fehlen, 
Da  slellt  ein  Wort  zur  rechten  Zeit  sich  ein.  —  Goethe's  Faust. 


Atitobiographical  109 

catalogue  for  the  Teachers'  Guild.  Neither  piece  of  business 
involved  really  hard  work,  but  the  continuous  strain  set  up 
brain-tiredness.  When  thus  tired  I  cannot  go  on  without 
getting  a  wretched  headache  of  a  pecuhar  kind.  Short  of  this 
I  have  a  dull  feeling  in  the  brain  verging  on  headache." 

Illuvies  ephcmeridiim 

"  26.  8.  '87.  In  looking  over  my  collection  of  old  tracts 
and  periodicals  about  education  I  feel  the  kind  of  regret  Victor 
Hugo  expressed  when  he  thought  of  all  the  drains  of  Paris 
running  into  the  sea.  What  horrible  waste  !  Yes,  indeed,  mais 
k  nwyen  de  Vempecher?  The  difficulty  is  that  valuable  as  the 
stuff  is  in  itself  it  is  so  fearfully  watered  down  as  to  be 
practically  useless.  The  quality  is  depreciated  and  the  bulk 
enormously  increased.  We  want  some  desiccating  machinery, 
and  I  would  gladly  turn  myself  into  a  patent  desiccator  if  life 
were  twice  as  long." 

Looking  over  and  destroying  old  papers 

"  In  many  ways  I  have  failed  to  discover  the  battle  in  life 
that  one  hears  of  in  sermons  and  elsewhere.  To  be  quite 
candid  I  don't  know  much  about  such  a  conflict.  The  work 
of  my  calling  is  to  me  my  most  pleasant  employment ;  and 
my  chief  temptation  is  to  get  engrossed  by  it  and  think  of 
nothing  else.  I  give  way  to  this  temptation  no  doubt  —  mais 
le  nioven  de  s'en  empecher,  at  all  events  when  one  has  such  an 
amount  of  work  which  must  be  done?  But  one  struggle  I  am 
always  engaged  in,  and  that  is  a  struggle  with  my  physical 
surroundings.  I  do  not  like  disorder  —  far  from  it  —  but  never 
having  paid  proper  attention  to  keeping  things  in  order, 
things  at  least  are  too  many  for  me  in  both  senses,  and 
after  trying  hard  to  get  them  straight  I  fail.  My  difficulties 
arise  from  two  sources  :  first  I  have  a  sort  of  '  acquisitive- 
ness,' which    prevents  me    from    throwing   away  things  which 


no  R.  H.   Quick 

'  may  come  in  useful.'  One  ought  to  have  learnt  by  this 
time  that  such  things  do  come  in  useful,  but  are  constantly 
coming  in  useless  and  worse,  as  one  every  now  and  then  has 
to  reconsider  the  question  of  continuing  to  keep  them,  and 
of  the  best  place  to  put  them  in.  Secondly,  I  am  always 
putting  things  to  rights,  but  never  take  pains  to  keep 
them  so. 

"  By  the  way  I  wonder  whether  these  note-book  scribblings 
of  mine  are  likely  to  have  a  good  or  bad  effect  on  my 
English.  I  read  so  little,  and  of  that  little  so  much  is 
French  or  German,  that  I  can  hardly  expect  to  have  any 
notion  of  the  run  of  a  good  English  sentence." 

Books  that  have  helped  me 

"  9  Sept.  '87.  This  is  the  tide  of  a  pleasant  short  article 
by  Dr  A.  Jessopp  in  the  Forum  for  September  '87.  He  seems 
to  have  made  permanent  friends  among  books.  How  few  of 
us  have  !  There  are  lots  of  books  which  have  at  one  time  or 
another  seemed  so  precious  to  me  that  I  could  not  help 
treasuring  them  up.  Some  of  these  (though  not  many)  I  have 
ceased  to  care  about.  I  remember  when  volumes  of  Manning's 
Sermons  seemed  to  raise  me  to  a  higher  region.  Now  it  would 
be  a  task  for  me  to  read  these  sermons,  as  they  have  become 
to  me  merely  eloquent.  I  had  for  some  years  (from  16  to  21) 
a  genuine  friendship  for  Macaulay,  and  was  never  tired  of  his 
society  ;  but  I  soon  threw  him  off  and  now  rarely  look  at 
him.  Soon  after  the  Macaulay  phase  Carlyle  had  great  in- 
fluence with  me.  I  read  him  still  with  delight  when  I  do 
read  him,  but  that  is  not  often.  Helps  I  got  a  great  deal 
from  some  five  years  ago.  I  read  the  Companions  of  my 
Solitude  again  and  was  surprised  to  find  how  much  I  owed 
to  Helps ;  but  though  I  could  read  him  I  don't.  Perhaps 
the  most  lasting  friendshii)s  I  hav^e  formed  are  with  Charles 
Lamb    and    Matthew   Arnold.       My   wife    and    I    have    spent 


Favourite  Authors  iii 

many  happy  hours  together  reading  Lamb.  I  know  no 
greater  pleasure  than  dehghting  in  a  book  in  common  with 
one's  alter  ego,  reading  it  aloud  and  talking  about  it  after." 

Carlylc,  Newman,  Maurice 

"15.  II.  '87.  I  have  lately  been  reading  R.  H.  Hutton's 
Essays  On  some  Modern  Guides.  Carlyle,  Newman,  and 
Maurice  are  to  my  mind  the  men  best  worth  studying  —  and 
for  this  reason  :  they  are  all  in  earnest.  They  have  faced  the 
great  question  of  existence  — '  are  we  the  outcome  of  certain 
laws  and  tendencies,  or  is  there  behind  all  these  laws  and 
tendencies  a  Mind  which  our  minds  can  in  part  conceive  of, 
because  they  were  created  in  the  image  of  It?'  Now  the  great 
mass  of  people  virtually  put  the  questions  unanswered  aside. 
There  has  been  an  outcry  from  time  to  time  about  'the  in- 
crease of  infidelity,'  but  the  man  who  carefully  answers  the 
question.  Is  there  a  God?  even  by  denial  is  far  higher  in  the 
scale  of  rational  beings  than  the  man  who  virtually  says,  '  I 
really  don't  know,  and  it  does  not  much  matter.  I'm  not 
going  to  bother  myself  to  think  whether  there  is  or  not.' 

"  Now  all  these  three  men  subordinated  everything  to  the 
thought  of  the  supreme  direction  of  God.  No  doubt  their 
conceptions  of  God  were  very  different.  It  was  perhaps  im- 
possible for  anyone  so  totally  devoid  of  humility  as  Carlyle 
to  be  a  Christian.  God  was  in  his  eyes  the  Schoolmaster 
of  the  Universe  whose  first  care  was  for  discipline.  Carlyle 
himself  was  '  the  good  boy  '  of  the  school  who  was  never 
weary  of  preaching  to  his  comrades  that  they  would  '  catch 
it.'  But  he  was  '  terribly  in  earnest.'  He  believed  in  law 
and  order,  and  never  lost  sight  of  discipline. 

"Maurice  had  taken  to  heart,  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
man  of  this  century,  '  Ciod  is  love,'  and,  as  in  all  these  men 
truth  is  '  touched  by  emotion,'  he  devoted  his  life  to  pro- 
claiming the  conviction. 


112  R.  H.  Quick 

"  Newman  has  felt  that  there  were  only  two  existences  that 
concerned  him,  God  and  himself;  and  his  life  has  been  a 
long  and  strenuous  preparation  for  eternity. 

"  All  these  have  been  influenced  throughout  life  by  their 
faith,  and  belief  in  the  true  cure  for  all  the  lowering  influences 
which  act  upon  us. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  Christians  who  squabble  about  forms 
of  Christianity  are  like  people  in  the  following  fable.  In  an 
eastern  city  the  plague  was  raging.  A  great  doctor  came 
from  a  foreign  country  and  gave  the  doctors  of  the  city  an 
elixir  which  was  a  specific  for  the  plague.  The  doctors  ap- 
proved it  and  announced  that  they  were  going  to  administer 
it,  but  unfortunately,  instead  of  setting  to  work  to  dispense 
it,  they  took  to  quarrelling  and  wrangling  about  the  shape 
of  the  glass  in  which  the  elixir  should  be  given,  and  every 
one  to  hear  them  would  have  thought  that  the  virtue  lay  not 
in  the  elixir,  but  the  glass.' 

Compayre 

"  26  Jan.  '88.  Compayr^  seems  to  belong  to  the  same 
class  of  minds  that  I  do  (I,  by  the  way,  am  very  low  down  in 
it  for  want  of  energy  and  power  of  rapid  work),  a  class  without 
any  power  of  original  thought,  but  with  intelligent  interest  in 
the  thoughts  of  others. 

"Writers  of  this  kind  have  an  extremely  useful  function. 
They  are  always  trying  to  get  at  the  best  of  what  has  been 
thought  and  done,  and  though  they  do  not  originate  thoughts, 
they  do  a  good  deal  for  thoitgJit,  for  they  co-ordinate  and 
connect  the  independent  thoughts  of  more  original  people. 
The  great  problems  present  themselves  to  all  active  minds  (a 
very  small  number  when  all  told),  and  these  work  out  what 
seem  to  them  solutions  or  approximate  solutions.  These  the 
intellectual  brokers,  so  to  speak,  bring  together  and  thus  find 
out,  if  not  the  solution,  at  least  the  direction  in  which  the 
solution  is    to    be    looked    for.      The    best   broker   (collector 


Compayre  1 1 3 

would  be  a  better  metaphor)  takes  the  thoughts  of  others 
into  his  mind  and  produces  a  homogeneous  whole.  But  it 
is  easier,  and  in  some  ways  more  satisfactory,  to  give  other 
people's  thoughts  in  their  own  language,  so  we  collectors 
abound  in  quotations.  But  quotations  make  a  book  patchy, 
and  moreover,  unless  the  quotation  is  very  short  indeed,  your 
author  probably  says  a  little  less  or  a  little  more  than  you 
want  him  to  say.  It's  always  pleasanter  to  listen  to  a  man 
explaining  himself  in  his  own  words  than  in  borrowed  words. 
This  may  seem  a  reason  for  giving  the  actual  words  of  the 
first  thinker,  but  the  reader  is  in  fact  in  communication,  not 
with  him,  but  with  tlie  collector,  and  he  does  not  like  that 
communication  to  be  broken  by  an  excerpt  from  someone 
else.  At  least  this  is  the  only  way  in  which  I  can  account 
for  the  undoubted  fact  that  extracts  or  quotations  of  more 
than  a  line  or  two  long  are  unpopular.  Compayre  quotes  far 
too  much." 

Quaritcli's  Catalogue 

"  26  Aug.  '88.  Various  reflections  come  into  my  head  when 
I  look  through  a  catalogue  like  this.  One  is,  how  important 
when  a  start  is  made  in  any  branch  of  study  and  inquiry  to 
learn  and  fix  in  one's  mind  what  are  the  best  authorities.  The 
ordinary  books  on  the  subject  are  pretty  sure  to  be  nothing 
but  authorities  and  water,  and  the  water  spoils  them.  A 
lecturer  may  be  very  useful  in  orienting  beginners.  Without 
such  orientation  one  often,  after  some  years,  discovers  a  book 
that  would  have  been  immensely  serviceable  had  one  known 
of  it  earlier.  \V'hen  I  wrote  Educational  Reformers  I  had  never 
heard  of  'Q^xw^xA'?,  American  Journal  of  Education.  It  was  a 
long  time  before  I  knew  of  Lowndes  or  Brunet,  and  there 
are  probably  many  great  helpers  to  educational  study  I  don't 
know  of  now. 

"  To  come  to  old  books,  one  of  their  great  recommenda- 
tions is  that  they  must  be  few  in  number.  'The  time  is 
I 


114  R.  H.  Quick 

short.'  One's  stock  of  energy  is  small.  One's  waste  both 
of  time  and  energy  is  great.  It  is  a  grand  thing  then  to 
apply  one's  time  and  energy  where  it  will  act  'at  mechanical 
advantage.'  When  one  works  in  a  small  subject  all  the  work 
tells,  but  most  subjects,  as  one's  knowledge  increases,  spread 
out  like  the  circles  made  by  a  stone  thrown  into  a  pond,  till 
the  area  is  no  longer  defined.  Happily  a  young  man  is  not 
struck  by  the  fact  that  life  is  limited  and  the  field  of  know- 
ledge unlimited.  The  young  man  looks  forward  to  the  time 
when  he  will  have  mastered  this  subject  or  that.  The  elderly 
man  is  always  running  up  against  the  barrier  '  Never.'  " 

Cookery  in  Schools 

"30  Sept.  '87.  I  am  one  of  those  people  who  see  things 
soon  but  don't  see  them  strongly  enough.  In  1865,  when 
I  was  in  Whitechapel,  I  started  the  idea  of  teaching  the  girls 
in  the  national  school  cooking  and  selling  cheap  dinners  ;  but 
nobody  took  up  my  notion  or  thought  anything  of  it.  I  was 
not  energetic  or  initiatory  enough  to  start  it  single-handed. 
No  doubt,  too,  I  was  hampered  by  the  system  at  Whitehall, 
though  the  Code  did  not  exist.  Now,  twenty-two  years  later, 
the  cookery  plan  is  coming  to  the  front." 

Sensitiveness 

"I  suppose  the  infliction  of  physical  pain  is  a  thing  to 
which  one  soon  gets  accustomed,  but  without  practice  the 
act  has  a  most  unpleasant  effect  upon  the  giver.  To-day 
Bertha  and  I  took  out  the  big  dog  here  (Haslemere)  for  a 
walk.  We  had  hardly  started,  the  dog  in  tremendous  spirits, 
when  he  seized  on  a  small  white  Malay,  and  seemed  likely 
to  be  the  death  of  it.  A  man  caught  hold  of  the  big  dog, 
and  as  it  did  not  let  go  the  little  dog,  he  suggested  to  me 
t(j  hit  our  dog  on  the  nose.  In  great  alarm  I  did  so  vigor- 
ously with  the  handle  of  my  umbrella,  and  it  was  wonderful 


Sensitiveness  1 1 5 

how  much  punishment  the  dog  took  before  he  let  go.  But 
having  to  do  this  upset  me  astonishingly,  and  some  time  after- 
wards, when  I  tried  to  read  a  book,  the  scene  came  back, 
stopped  my  reading  and  filled  me  with  a  very  distressing 
feeling  that  I  could  not  shake  off.  I  don't  think  I  have  ever 
had  a  horrid  impression  thus  forced  on  me  except  once,  when 
I  had  to  take  a  corpse  out  of  the  water." 


I  cannot  better  conclude  this  fragmentary  biography,  which 
has  the  one  merit  of  being  mainly  an  autobiography,  than  by 
reprinting  some  obituary  notices '  that  were  at  my  request  con- 
tributed by  tliose  of  his  friends  who  knew  him  most  intimately, 
and  were  best  qualified  to  treat  respectively  of  that  portion  of 
his  life  with  which  they  were  connected.  They  appeared  in 
a  special  Supplement  of  the  Journal  of  Education,  April  i, 
1891. 

I  have  not  ventured  to  curtail  or  alter  them,  and  the  reader 
must  pardon  a  few  unavoidable  repetitions. 

Clerical  Work.     By  the  Rev.  /.  Llewelyn  Davies 

Last  October,  Hebert  Quick  reminded  me  that  we  had  known 
each  other  for  36  years.  He  came  to  me  from  Cambridge  —  I  do 
not  remember  through  what  introduction  —  as  an  additional  unpaid 
curate  when  I  had  charge  of  the  parish  of  St  Mark's.  Whitechapel. 
That  he  was  interested  by  the  clerical  work  in  that  populous  and 
not  admired  locality,  was  proved  afterwards.  On  my  removal  to 
Christ  Church,  St  Marylebone.  he  went  with  me,  and  we  found 
there  a  quarter  and  a  population  which  might  be  compared  with 
what  we  had  known  in  Whitechapel.  He  did  not,  however,  stav 
long  in  Marylebone.  Our  acquaintance  had  quickly  ripened  into 
an  affectionate  friendship,  and  we  were  —  as  we  continued  to  be  to 
the  last  —  in  close  sympatliy  on  theological  and  ecclesiastical  and 
social  questions;  but  throughout  his  whole  life,  after  being  for  a 
certain  time  in   a  place,  he  was  impelled  Ijy  an  apparently  consti- 

'  Those  by  Dr  H.  M.  Butler  and  Mr  John  Russell  have  already  been 
quoted. 


ii6  R.  H.   Quick 

tutional  craving  to  make  a  change.  His  friends  could  not  under- 
stand this  craving,  in  one  so  faithful  in  his  affections  and  apparently 
demanding  so  little  from  life.  After  a  few  years'  interval  he  re- 
turned to  St  Mark's,  Whitechapel,  as  assistant  curate  to  Mr  R.  E. 
Bartlett,  recently  Bampton  Lecturer,  who  became  a  valued  friend 
of  his ;  and  there  he  had  as  fellow-curate  Mr  Voysey,  who  in- 
terested him  greatly.  His  chief  clerical  work  in  after  years  was  at 
Sedbergh, '  to  the  vicarage  of  which  place  he  was  appointed  by 
Trinitv  College  in  1883.  In  a  few  years'  time  he  insisted  on  re- 
signing this  post,  chiefly  that  he  might  devote  all  his  energies  to 
'  pasdagogy ' ;  but  in  the  churchyard  of  the  well-loved  Yorkshire 
parish  it  was  my  privilege  last  Saturday  to  say  the  words  of  hope 
over  his  remains,  whilst  the  attendance  at  the  funeral  showed  what 
respect  and  aftection  he  had  won  amongst  his  parishioners. 

There  was  no  one  who  had  a  better  right  to  win  the  affections 
of  his  fellow-men  of  any  class.  I  never  knew  a  man  more  un- 
worldly, more  simple,  more  quietly  indifferent  to  money  or  praise. 
Such  a  man  was  sure  to  like  children,  and  to  attract  them,  as 
Quick  did  in  an  eminent  degree.  He  had  not  a  telling  manner  as 
a  preacher,  but  his  sermons  were  always  fresh  and  interesting  and 
serious,  and  he  could  preach  extempore  with  more  success  than  I 
should  have  expected.  And  he  had  the  advantage  —  no  small  one 
for  a  clergyman  in  these  days  —  of  being  musical.  In  parochial 
work  his  sympathies  were  always  with  the  poor,  but  they  were 
guarded  by  a  manly  respect  for  the  independence  of  the  poorest 
and  a  desire  for  their  moral  and  intellectual  elevation.  I  was  sorry 
when  he  gave  up  his  parish  —  though  he  did  not  altogether  give  up 
the  performance  of  clerical  duty  —  because  I  was  convinced  that  his 
spiritual  work,  pure,  loving,  and  deeply  reverent,  had  a  peculiar 
excellence  and  value,  such  as  he  himself  was  not  likely  adequately 

to  appreciate. 

J.  Ll.  D. 

Harrow.     By  a  Colleague 

Mr  Quick's  Harrow  life,  both  as  a  boy  and  as  a  master,  was  a 
short  one,  but  long  enough  to  make  him  for  all  time  the  most  loyal 
and  devoted  of  Harrovians.  As  a  boy  he  was  contemporary  witli 
Dr  Butler,  and  during  Ur  Butler's  headmastership  he  returned  to 


Harrow  117 

his  old  scliool  as  a  master  on  the  Modern  Side,  which  post  he  lield 
from  January,  1870,  until  ill-health  obliged  him  to  retire  in  the 
summer  of  1874. 

In  teaching  Harrow  boys,  it  cannot  be  said  that  he  was  alto- 
gether successful ;  his  best  work,  perhaps,  was  done  in  the  elements 
of  German,  a  language  in  which  he  felt  thoroughly  at  home.  He 
enjoyed  teaching  small  boys  better  than  older  ones,  who,  perhaps, 
sometimes  showed  a  little  impatience  of  the  elaborateness  and 
what  seemed  to  them  the  slowness  of  his"  methods.  The  fact  is 
that,  as  in  his  own  composition,  so  in  teaching,  he  was  fastidious, 
never  quite  able  to  accept  as  necessary  the  imperfections  of  im- 
mature work,  or  to  press  on  further  until  he  was  satisfied  that  all 
possible  difficulties  had  been  cleared  up  for  every  boy  in  his  class. 
With  the  younger  boys  he  had  many  ingenious  devices,  which  his 
own  experience  or  that  of  others  had  suggested,  for  varying  the 
monotony  of  learning.  Though  his  most  successful  work  was  in 
the  lower  part  of  the  Modern  Side,  some  at  least  of  the  older  and 
more  thoughtful  boys  have  told  the  present  writer  that  they  enjoyed 
their  hours  in  school  with  Mr  Quick  more  than  any  others.  Of  all 
that  savoured,  or  seemed  to  savour,  of  J/Jpts  or  brutality  or  injustice, 
he  was  absolutely  intolerant,  and  the  indignation  which  would  flash 
out  at  anything  of  the  kind  gained  him  the  nickname  of  '  Old 
Fireworks,'  —  a  most  appropriate  title ;  for,  when  once  the  cause 
was  removed,  the  fire  of  his  wrath  soon  burnt  itself  out,  and  left  no 
smouldering  resentment  behind. 

But  it  was  his  fellow-masters,  rather  than  the  boys,  who  felt,  on 
his  leaving  Harrow,  that  the  loss  was  irreparable.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  those  who  had  had  the  good  fortune  to  live  under 
the  same  roof  with  him  felt  as  they  might  have  done  if  the  genial 
warmth  and  steady  brightness  of  the  sun  had  been  taken  from 
them. 

He  was  the  most  faithful,  the  most  unselfish,  the  most  sympa- 
thetic of  friends.  Nothing  which  had  an  interest  for  those  he 
loved  was  too  trivial  to  interest  him.  No  time  was  too  long,  no 
pains  too  great,  for  him  to  spend  in  helping  a  friend  through  a 
difficulty,  in  setting  right  an  injustice,  or  getting  rid  of  an  abuse. 
And  if  hope  ever  '  springs  eternal '  in  any  human  breast,  it  cer- 
tainly did  in  his.  It  was  hope  which  grew  naturally  out  of  a  deep 
and    serene  trust  in  God.     Although  he  had  been  at  Harrow  so 


ii8  R,  H.  Oiuck 

short  a  time,  liardly  any  one  else  could  have  been  missed  so  much. 
What  a  well-known  figure  it  was  at  Harrow  —  the  slouch  hat,  the 
big  overcoat  with  its  collar,  as  often  as  not,  half  up  and  half  down, 
the  pockets  perhaps  gaping  with  a  load  oi  curious  books  which  he 
had  just  picked  up  at  some  bookstall  in  town ;  the  large  brown 
beard,  the  kind  brown  eyes,  and  the  characteristic  nod  or  shower 
of  nods  ever  ready  to  greet  an  acquaintance,  rich  or  poor,  big  or 
little. 

He  was  very  different  from  everybody  about  him,  and  had  had 
a  larger  experience  than  most  men  when  he  came  to  Harrow. 
One  and  another  of  his  colleagues,  who  were  new  to  their  work, 
owed  it  to  him  that  they  learnt  to  look  at  schoolmastering  with 
more  open  eyes  and  wider  interest.  He  was  always  ready  and 
delighted  to  discuss,  over  his  pipe,  the  details  and  the  principles  of 
his  profession ;  and  his  humour,  never  in  the  least  unkind,  and  an 
endless  fund  of  stories,  which  he  told  capitally,  made  him  the  most 
interesting  and  delightful  of  companions.  At  a  masters'  meeting 
he  would  sometimes,  instead  of  speaking,  put  his  thoughts  into  the 
form  of  an  essay,  which  he  would  print  and  circulate.  Among 
other  improvements  which  Harrow  owes  to  him  is  the  Blue  Book, 
which  gives  in  a  single  line  the  school  history  of  each  boy  —  initials, 
school  title,  house,  tutor,  age,  form,  the  form  he  took  on  coming, 
and  the  date  of  coming,  and  all  his  school  distinctions.  He  was 
the  first  to  discover  that  it  was  possible  to  call  over  the  school 
anywhere  except  in  the  very  inconvenient  Fourth  Form  Room,  and 
invented  a  circulating  'Bill'  through  the  old  Speech  Room.  The 
School  Tercentenary  fell  in  the  year  187 r,  and  Mr  Quick  was  one 
of  its  most  active  secretaries.  Indeed,  to  the  work  which  he  did  in 
this  cause,  in  that  and  in  the  following  years,  may  perhaps  be 
attributed  in  great  measure  the  terrible  headaches  which  finally 
made  life  as  a  Harrow  master  impossible  for  him. 

G.  H.  Hallam. 

Redhill 

It  was  just  three  weeks  before  his  death  that  I  went  down  to 
Redhill  to  spend  the  day  with  my  old  friend.  Since  he  moved  to 
Earlswood  Cottage,  a  term  has  never  passed  without  at  least  one 


Re  did  I  I  1 1 9 

such  visit.  The  programme  for  tlie  day  was  nearly  always  the 
same,  and,  if  I  set  down  my  recollection  of  our  last  day's  inter- 
course, I  shall  present  a  true,  though  incomplete,  sketch  of 
Mr  Quick  as  I  knew  him  after  he  had  withdrawn  from  active 
life.  Much,  indeed  —  and  what  to  me  is  the  most  precious  part  — 
can  only  be  adumbrated :  the  mutual  converse  and  counsel  on  our 
})rivate  concerns,  business,  family,  and  deeper  matters.  I  never 
knew  a  man  so  absolutely  without  concealments  or  reticencies  of 
any  kind.  This  transparency  of  character  was  due  to  a  singularly 
childlike  and  trustful,  but  by  no  means  a  shallow  or  effusive,  nature. 
He  felt  deeply  and  thought  profoundly,  but  he  never  preached  or 
gushed.  And  confidence  provoked  confidence.  His  sympathies 
were  wide,  and  he  was  the  most  tolerant  of  men.  Himself  a 
sincere  churchman,  he  admired  Mr  Matthew  Arnold  no  less  than 
Mr  Spurgeon.  Only  where  he  suspected  quackery  and  imposture, 
whether  orthodox  or  unorthodox,  he  had  no  mercy.  Fools  he 
suffered  gladly,  and.  like  the  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  his  doors  were 
besieged  by  what  I  may  term  pedagogic  beggars  —  men  of  all 
nationalities,  wanting  information,  introductions,  or  employment. 
None  was  sent  empty  away.  He  had  correspondents  all  over  the 
world,  and  to  America  he  acted  as  a  sort  oi proxenos. 

On  arriving  I  went  straight  to  his  study.  The  room  was  lined 
all  round  with  book-shelves  reaching  to  the  ceiling,  and  tables, 
chairs,  and  writing-desk  were  strewn  with  books  and  pamphlets. 
Books  were  the  one  luxury  in  which  he  indulged  himself  (except 
unstinted  charity),  and,  wherever  he  took  up  his  abode,  the  house 
from  attic  to  cellar  was  soon  converted  into  a  library.  Any  new 
book  bearing  on  his  own  subject  he  ordered  as  a  matter  of  course, 
and  a  rare  book,  even  when  he  was  bon  p^re  de  faniille,  he  could 
never  resist.  First  editions  of  Mulcaster,  Elyot,  Comenius,  and 
of  less-known  authors,  Brinsley,  Mary  Astell,  and  Hoole,  were 
among  his  choicest  treasures.  The  nucleus  of  this  library  was  a 
bequest  from  his  old  friend  Joseph  Payne,  and  he  told  me  that  it 
was  his  intention  to  bequeath  it  to  some  public  body. 

He  showed  me  an  article  he  had  on  the  stocks  for  his  friend 
Dr  Murray  Butler's  new  magazine.  I  don't  think  he  had  christened 
it,  but  the  subject  was  the  embarrassments  of  a  literary  man — how 
to  deal  with  ever-accumulating  materials,  periodicals,  pamphlets, 
note-books,  commonplace    books.      He   quoted   to   me  a  business 


I20  R.  H.  Quick 

maxim  of  Iiis  father's,  always  to  get  rid  of  useless  or  depreciated 
stock,  and  never  to  keep  it  on  the  chance  of  a  rise  in  the  market, 
or  a  possible  demand  for  it.  The  article  was,  in  fact,  a  chapter  of 
autobiography,  and  I  hope  it  will  be  published,  if  only  as  a  frag- 
ment. 

Lying  open  on  his  writing-table  was  the  official  report  of  the 
Berlin  Conference,  and  we  fell  at  once  to  discussing  the  project  of 
reform  in  Germany,  and  the  analogous  movement  in  England. 
He  expressed  his  full  sympathy  with  Mr  Welldon's  motion  at 
Oxford,  but  doubted  whether  it  would  lead  to  any  immediate 
result.  ''It's  so  hard,"  he  said,  "to  convince  men  that  the  school 
in  which  they  were  bred  is  not  the  best  of  all  possible  schools ; 
and,  when  they  point  to  themselves  as  a  proof  of  its  excellence,  it 
is  hard  to  answer  them  without  being  mde.  So  we  shall  still  jog 
on  in  dent  alien  Schlendrian.^^  This  led  us  to  the  question  of  the 
training  of  teachers,  the  educational  reform  which  of  all  others  he 
had  most  at  heart,  and  he  listened  eagerly  to  what  I  had  to  tell 
him  about  the  prospects  of  the  Registration  Bill.  He  reminded 
me  of  a  phrase  of  Paulsen's,  Die  Rechte  der  Lehrerbildnng  gegen 
die  Gelehrtenbilditng,  as  embodying  the  principle  of  Mr  Acland's 
Bill,  and  gave  instances  of  the  loss  our  schools  suffer  because 
headmasters  as  a  rule  are  scholars  and  not  schoolmen.  "M.  is 
reckoned,  and  justly  reckoned,  one  of  the  best  headmasters  in 
England,  and  as  a  Sixth  Form  teaciier  he  is  admirable.  But  when 
he  used  occasionally  to  take  a  low  form,  he  was  all  at  sea,  and  it 
was  only  the  majesty  which  hedges  a  headmaster  that  prevented  a 
regular  breakdown.  How  can  such  a  man  pretend  to  train  a  young 
master  in  the  way  he  should  go?  I  remember,  once,  when  it  was 
proposed  at  a  masters'  meeting  to  shorten  first  school  from  an  hour 
and  a  quarter  to  one  hour,  N.  protested  because  it  would  be  im- 
possible for  him  to  hear  his  repetition  in  the  time.  The  whole 
form,  it  appeared,  did  nothing  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter  except 
during  the  couple  of  minutes  that  each  boy  was  put  on.  Yet  these 
are  the  men  who  think  that  the  history  of  teaching  is  only  of 
antiquarian  interest,  and  that  a  study  of  method  is  needed  only  for 
the  elementary  teacher." 

He  was  greatly  cheered  both  l)y  the  reviews  and  by  the  sale  of 
the  second  edition  of  Educational  Reformers.  More  copies  had 
been  sold  in  six  months  than  of  the  first  edition  in  twenty  years  —  I 


RedJiiU  1 2 1 

mean,  of  course,  in  England.  In  America  the  l)ook  had  sold  by 
the  thousand,  though  he  had  not  received  a  penny  for  it,  and  he 
was  righteously  indignant  witli  one  American  firm  which,  in  spite 
of  his  protests,  had  announced  a  simple  reprint  as  a  new  and 
revised  edition. 

"Do  you  know,"  he  asked  me,  ''my  Harrow  nickname?  I 
never  heard  it  till  Hallam  told  me  the  other  day  I  was  known  as 
Old  Fireworks.  Not  a  bad  one,  was  it?"  I  agreed,  suggesting  as 
an  alternative  more  fitting  for  his  riper  years  Don  Quixote.  "  Yes," 
lie  said,  '•  IVe  tilted  at  windmills  in  my  day,  but  I  think  I've  also 
pricked  one  or  two  windbags."  An  abuse,  whether  in  Church,  in 
State,  or  in  School,  was  to  him  like  a  red  rag;  he  rushed  at  it 
utterly  regardless  of  odds  or  personal  risks.  Just  before,  he  had 
been  telling  me  of  a  case  of  apparent  miscarriage  of  justice  which 
lie  had  taken  up.  A  traveller  in  Messrs  Blackie's  employment  was 
tried  for  incendiarism,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  a  year's  im- 
prisonment with  hard  labour.  The  man  bore  an  unimpeachable 
character,  and  all  who  knew  him  were  convinced  that  his  ex- 
planation of  the  suspicious  circumstances  which  led  to  his  arrest 
and  conviction  was  true.  Mr  Quick  left  no  stone  unturned  to  get 
him  oiT.  He  obtained  an  interview  with  Mr  Justice  Stephen,  and 
convinced  him  that  there  was  at  least  -^  pritnd  facie  case  for  a  new 
trial.  He  appealed  to  the  Home  Office,  and,  failing  to  get  any 
redress  from  Mr  Matthews,  he  was  preparing  to  draw  up  a  state- 
ment of  the  case  and  send  it  to  every  Member  of  Parliament. 
Like  Archdeacon  Denison,  he  was  ever  a  fighter,  but  with  all  his 
pugnacity  he  never  lost  his  keen  sense  of  the  hum.orous.  and  so  his 
friends  were  never  bored  when  he  fought  his  battles  over.  The 
personal  element  was  t)y  no  means  absent,  and  he  would  have 
satisfied  Dr  Johnson's  standard  as  2i good  /inter;  but  there  was  not 
a  touch  of  bitterness  or  malevolence  in  his  hatred,  still  less,  if 
possible,  a  trace  of  self-assertion  or  self-glorification.  He  had  his 
quarrels,  literary,  scholastic,  and  parochial,  but  he  was  too  genial 
and  kindly  ever  to  make  a  real  enemy. 

All  the  best  stories  against  himself  were  told  by  himself.  For 
instance,  he  told  me  how  his  bile  had  been  roused  by  an  article  in 
tlie  Spectator  defending  the  Education  Department,  which  he 
imagined  to  have' been  contributed  by  a  well-known  inspector,  and 
had  written  off  to  one  of  the  editors  with  whom  he  was  acquainted, 


122  R.  H.  Quick 

to  protest  against  the  admission  of  such  an  ex  parte  statement,  and 
how  the  editor  had  replied:  'Why  are  you  always  sniffing  out 
officialism?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  /  wrote  the  article.'  He  told  me 
how  an  editor  of  the  old  Jouinal  of  Education  had  appealed  to 
him  for  an  article,  and  on  his  consenting,  had  replied :  '  I  am 
much  obliged  to  you  for  your  kind  promise  of  help,  but  I  should  be 
still  more  grateful  if  you  could  persuade  your  colleague,  Mr  Farrar, 
to  contribute.''  Most  men  would  have  been  offended,  Mr  Quick 
was  simply  tickled.  He  told  me  how,  when  he  was  thinking  of 
resigning  the  living  of  Sedbergh,  he  had  written  to  the  Master  and 
Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  announcing  his  intention  and  express- 
ing his  desire  to  suit  their  convenience  by  placing  his  resignation 
in  their  hands  before  the  Long,  but  adding  that  he  wished  first  that 
a  small  matter  that  was  pending  between  him  and  the  Charity 
Commissioners  should  be  settled  first,  and  how  the  Trinity  authori- 
ties had  answered:  'If  you  mean  to  wait  till  the  C.  C.  have  settled 
anything,  your  decease  is  likely  to  precede  your  resignation.'  In 
this  case,  however,  the  story  was  hardly  against  himself,  for,  he 
added:  ''The  next  time  I  wrote  to  the  C.  C,  I  took  care  to  quote 
the  Trinity  letter." 

After  luncheon  always  came  a  walk,  generally  in  the  direction 
of  Reigate,  by  the  chalk  ridge  from  which  we  could  see  the  Surrey 
hills  and  his  old  home  at  Guildford.  That  day  we  walked  through 
Gatton  Park,  and  once  and  again  he  stopped  me  to  remark  on 
some  eiifect  of  light  and  shade,  or  trees  that  'laid  their  dark  arms 
about  the  fields.'  Tennyson  and  Wordsworth  were  his  favourite 
poets,  and.  though  his  verbal  memory  was  not  remarkable,  he 
knew  a  great  part  of  Tennyson  by  heart.  In  our  walks,  as  a  rule, 
we  left  shop  behind,  and  the  talk  was  mainly  of  books  and  men. 
Of  English  writers,  those  who  had  influenced  him  most  were 
Carlyle,  Maurice,  Newman,  and  Matthew  Arnold.  Mr  Arnold  he 
knew  pretty  intimately  when  both  were  living  at  Harrow,  and  often 
quoted  his  aculeate  words.  Any  article  by  Professor  Seeley  in  a 
newspaper  or  review  was  cut  out  and  carefully  preserved.  Mr  James 
Ward  was  another  object  of  his  hero-worship,  and  he  spoke  en- 
thusiastically of  the  Cambridge  lectures  to  teachers,  regretting  that 
the  author  refused  to  publish  them  and  seemed  inclined  to  desert 
applied  psychology  for  pure  philosophy.  I  observe  that  a  friendly 
notice  in  the  School  Guardian  speaks  of  Mr  Quick  as  an  empiricist 


Red  hill  1 2  3 

rather  than  a  psychologist,  and.  as  his  boolv  might  reasonably 
convey  this  impression,  I  may  digress  for  a  moment  to  correct 
what  is,  at  any  rate,  a  misleading  nomenclature.  It  is  quite  true 
that  he  pursued  the  historical  method,  and  had  little  faith  in  a 
priori  reasonings.  It  is  true  also  that  he  was  an  experimentalist. 
All  his  life  through,  he  was  observing  the  minds  of  children,  his 
own  or  others,  and  recording  his  observations.  A  whole  shelf  in 
his  study  is  full  of  diaries  containing  notes  of  cases.  Ijut  it  is  not 
true  that  he  thought  lightly  of  the  formal  study  of  psychology.  He 
was  never  tired  of  denouncing  the  false  opposition  between  theory 
and  practice,  and  insisting  that  empiricism  is  itself  a  theory,  though 
a  very  shallow  one.  In  later  years  he  came  to  value  more  highly 
than  he  once  did  the  works  of  men  like  Ribot  and  Guyau,  Rosmini 
and  Froebel,  Bain  and  Sully,  and  he  spoke  of  himself  as  an  oi//t- 
/uu^ry;.  one  who  was  humbly  endeavouring  to  overtake  the  new 
developments  of  the  science  of  mind. 

To  resume  my  day's  record,  we  reached  home  in  time  for  tea, — 
his  liking  for  tea  was  another  trait  he  shared  with  Dr  Johnson, — 
and  after  tea  he  insisted  on  accompanying  me  to  the  station.  I 
asked  how  his  health  had  been  of  late,  and  he  answered  cheerily, 
"Never  so  free  from  headaches  since  I  was  at  Harrow."  He  spoke 
of  future  plans,  and  we  discussed  the  respective  advantages  of 
Rugby,  Bedford  and  Sedbergh,  and  other  towns.  He  was  a  firm 
believer  in  day-schools,  and  intended  to  settle  wherever  was  the 
best  school  that  admitted  day-boys.  His  life  was  wrapped  up  in 
his  children,  whom  of  late  he  taught  almost  entirely  himself.  "  I 
should,"  he  said,  "have  no  hesitation  in  choosing  X.,  but,  Y.  (the 
headmaster)  is  getting  on  in  years,  and  by  the  time  the  boy  is  old 
enough  for  school  I  fear  he  will  have  resigned  or  been  made  a 
bishop,  and  who  knows  but  that  another  Z.  may  succeed  him?" 
These  were  almost  the  last  words  I  remember.  Dis  aliter  visin/i. 
A  week  after  came  the  news  of  the  fatal  stroke.  No  man  was  less 
]3repared  to  die;  no  man  was  better  prepared  for  death.  He  had 
lived  ever  in  the  eye  of  his  great  taskmaster;  his  whole  life  had 
been  a  praeparatio  mortis.  The  task  was  done,  and  we  who  are 
left  mourning  can  yet  repeat  'the  sweetest  canticle  A^/^//r  diiniitis, 
when  a  man  hath  obtained  worthy  ends  and  expectations.' 

F.  S. 


124  R.  H.  Quick 


Last  days.     By  Professor  Seelcy 

Quick  came  down  to  pay  me  a  short  visit  on  Friday,  February 
2oth.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  several  months,  but  I  had  lately 
received  from  him  a  copy  of  the  new  edition  of  his  Educational 
Reformers.  The  book  had  been  known  to  me  not  only  from  the 
time  of  its  first  publication,  but  from  an  earlier  time  still,  when  it 
was  in  an  embryonic  state.  Before  it  met  with  such  signal  success, 
first  in  America  and  afterwards  here  too.  I  had  been  struck  with 
the  plan  of  it.  To  make  a  book  on  education  readable,  particularly 
if  you  must  needs  make  it  also  sober  and  rational,  is  a  problem 
which  most  publishers  consider  insoluble.  But  after  all,  some  of 
those  great  men  whom  we  are  never  tired  of  reading  about  can  be 
put  into  connection  with  educational  subjects.  What  Milton,  or 
Locke,  or  Rousseau  thought  and  said  will  interest  us,  even  if  it  be 
on  the  subject  of  education.  It  was  therefore  a  happy  thought  to 
arrange  in  a  series  the  educational  systems  that  have  been  broached 
by  great  thinkers,  adding  some  biographical  and  bibliographical 
information,  as  well  as  the  intelligent  reflections  of  an  editor  who 
is  himself  an  educational  specialist.  This,  then,  is  the  solution  of 
the  problem.  We  owe  it  to  Quick,  and  he  lived  long  enough  to 
see  his  book,  which  he  did  not  expect,  I  am  sure,  when  he  wrote  it, 
to  outlast  a  single  bookselling  season,  reprinted  after  twenty  years 
and  selling  briskly.  Meanwhile,  his  knowledge  of  the  subject  had 
deepened,  and  his  judgment  had  ripened.  His  second  edition  is 
an  incomparably  more  satisfactory  book  than  his  first.  In  a  letter 
to  him  I  welcomed  it  with  an  enthusiasm  which  seemed  to  take 
him  by  surprise.  He  answered  me,  refusing  absolutely  to  believe 
that  he  had  the  literary  talents  I  ascribed  to  him.  All  he  would 
ever  claim  for  himself,  he  said,  was  that  he  was  "  quite  determined 
not  to  write  nonsense."  Then  he  went  on  to  inquire  about  my  own 
literary  plans,  and  said  he  should  like  to  read  some  proofs  I  had  by 
me,  and  help  me  with  his  opinion  and  advice.  So  it  was  agreed 
that  he  should  pay  me  a  visit  here  at  Cambridge.  He  was  to  stay 
four  days,  from  Friday  to  Tuesday,  during  which  time  he  would 
read  my  proofs.  He  came,  looking  very  well,  and  professing  to 
feel  in  better  health  than  for  many  years.  He  came,  but  he  staved 
more  than  four  days,  and  he  did  not  read  my  proofs !     He  brought 


Last  days  125 

'  Friendship's  Garland  '  witli  him,  which  lie  had  read  in  the  train, 
and  in  our  midnight  chat  over  the  fire  —  the  last  we  ever  had  —  he 
talked  of  it  with  great  glee,  and  he  talked  of  Matthew  Arnold 
himself,  whom  he  had  known  at  Harrow,  and  of  whom  he  always 
loved  to  speak.  On  the  Saturday  morning,  I  remember,  Mr 
Churton  Collins  called  to  get  my  signature  to  his  memorial  in 
favour  of  Italian.  I  introduced  Quick  to  him,  and  two  signatures 
were  obtained  where  only  one  had  been  expected.  After  lunch  I 
proposed  a  walk.  "  Yes,"  he  said,  •'  he  should  like  a  real  good 
walk ;  he  so  seldom  got  a  walk."  We  set  out,  but  scarcely  a 
hundred  paces  from  my  door,  and  before  we  had  reached  the 
'  Fitzwilliam,' came  the  fatal  seizure.  He  sank  down  helpless  and 
paralysed,  and  we  had  extreme  difficulty  in  lifting  him  into  a 
hansom  in  order  to  bring  him  home. 

He  lay  in  my  house  for  sixteen  days.  Dr  Bradbury,  who 
treated  the  case  with  the  most  careful  skill,  pronounced  that  he 
had  been  struck  with  spinal  apoplexy.  The  brain  was  not  affected, 
and  his  mind  was  perfectly  clear.  At  first  he  despaired  of  himself. 
He  said,  '•  I  suppose  I  shall  die  to-morrow."  That  his  family  were 
far  away,  and  would  not  see  him  again,  was  his  grief;  but  Quick 
was  one  of  those  who  trust  in  God.  I  was  able,  however,  to  tell 
him  from  Dr  Bradbury  that,  though  of  course  he  had  suffered  a 
heavy  blow,  yet,  as  the  hemorrhage  seemed  to  be  ceasing,  so 
long  as  he  remained  quiet  in  bed,  there  was  no  actual  danger. 
Dr  Bradbury,  indeed,  soon  changed  his  mind ;  he  came  upon  the 
track  of  other  diseases,  and  soon  began  to  regard  the  paralysis  as 
but  the  smaller  half  of  the  case.  Meanwhile,  however,  Quick  had 
been  reassured,  and  for  a  full  week  after  the  first  seizure  I  could 
notice  that  he  expected  to  recover,  and  looked  forward  to  leaving 
his  bed  again.  He  was  now  not  merely  resigned,  but  cheerful  and 
sanguine,  long  after  I  had  ceased  to  be  so.  His  thoughts  returned 
to  their  former  channel.  When  I  offered  to  read  to  him.  he  asked 
for  '  Friendship's  Garland,'  and  I  read  him  at  different  times  two 
chapters  of  it,  which  he  seemed  to  enjoy  heartily,  much  more 
heartily  than  I  could. 

But,  as  the  second  week  advanced,  he  seemed  to  drift  away 
beyond  my  knowledge.  Now  when  I  spoke  to  him  he  took  little 
notice,  answered  very  feebly,  and  in  words  which  seemed  to  betray 
that  his  mind  wandered.     There  was  no  clear  interval  between  the 


126  R.  H.   Quick 

time  when  he  expected  to  recover  and  the  time  when  consciousness 
began  to  fail  him. 

On  the  evening  of  March  9th,  I  was  summoned  by  the  nurse, 
who  had  become  aware  of  a  sudden  change  in  him.  His  brother, 
too,  who  had  arrived  from  London  early  in  his  illness,  and  watched 
him  assiduously,  was  hurriedly  summoned.  I  saw  the  last  struggle, 
which  did  not  last  long  and  was  not  severe ;  he  seemed  quite 
unconscious.     His  brother  arrived  a  few  minutes  too  late. 

I  little  thought  that  it  would  fall  to  me  to  furnish  a  death-bed 
to  dear  old  Quick,  and  to  see  him  die.  1  had  known  him  many 
years,  and  our  intercourse  had  always  been  pleasant  and  cordial, 
but  seldom  very  close.  We  were  neither  schoolfellows  nor  college 
friends,  nor  had  we  ever  been  colleagues  or  associated  in  any  task. 
Our  acquaintance  began  on  the  top  of  an  Italian  diligence,  as  we 
crossed  the  Apennines  to  Florence.  Both  of  us  were  making  our 
first  visit  to  Florence,  so  that  on  the  same  day  on  which  we  made 
acquaintance  with  each  other  we  also  made  acquaintance  with 
Brunelleschi's  dome  and  Giotto's  bell-tower.  Afterwards,  in  1867, 
I  travelled  with  him  for  about  six  weeks  in  Southern  Germany. 
Since  those  days  our  meetings  have  been  shorter,  but  we  have 
watched  each  other's  course  with  constant  sympathy.  Each  has 
read  with  interest  what  the  other  wrote,  but  our  lines  of  thought 
and  study  were  for  the  most  part  different. 

I  never  knew  a  man  of  happier  disposition  and  temper.  He 
was  all  candour  and  kindliness.  Intercourse  with  him  was  always 
easy,  and  yet  never  insipid.  He  had  a  singular  modesty,  which  he 
contrived  to  combine  with  perfect  firmness  of  judgment.  His  re- 
ligion he  had  learnt  from  Frederick  Maurice.  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  he  had  been  disappointed  to  find  how  little  that  noble  and 
consoling  doctrine  had  penetrated  our  people.  But  it  satisfied  Jii»u 
for  indeed  it  answered  well  to  the  inborn  piety  of  his  nature,  to  that 
strong  family  feeling  which  everyone  could  note  in  him  who  heard 
him  speak  of  his  parents,  or  saw  him  in  his  own  happy  home,  or 
marked  his  behaviour  to  the  children  of  his  friends. 

J.  R.  S. 


Elementary  Education  127 

ELEMENTARY    EDUCATION 

Debate  in  House  of  Coi/i/iions  on    10  June,   1879 

"  The  intelligent  public  and  intelligent  Secretary  for  Educa- 
tion have  got  hold  of  the  notion  that  the  school  boards  in 
general  and  the  London  School  Board  in  particular  are 
spending  too  much  money,  and  that  this  must  be  altered. 
Nobody  asks  what  standard  do  you  go  by  ?  Not  at  all. 
Nobody  has  any  notion  what  the  school  ought  to  do.  The 
consequence  is  that  the  only  difference  '  public  opinion ' 
can  find  in  schools  is  that  some  schools  cost  more  than  others. 
Lord  George  Hamilton  says  the  London  School  Board  pay 
more  than  the  market  price  for  teachers,  and  this  must  be 
stopped.  If  teachers  were  as  much  alike  as  so  many  pots  of 
Keiller's  marmalade  there  would  be  some  sense  in  talking 
about  the  market  price  ;  but  this  ridiculous  cry  for  cheapness 
irrespective  of  quality  is  no  more  good  political  economy  than 
it  is  good  sense.  The  root  of  the  whole  mischief  of  these 
debates  is  that  nobody  has  a  worthy  conception  of  education. 
'  Education  '  in  the  mind  of  the  public  is  learning  first  of  all  the 
three  R's,  and  then  it  becomes  '  a  good  education  '  if  you  can 
carry  the  pupil  on  into  grammar,  history  and  geography ;  and  a 
first-rate  education  if  you  go  so  far  as  the  classical  languages. 
So  it  seems  that  many  of  our  elementary  schools  give  '  too 
good  an  education  '  to  the  children  of  the  poor,  and  this  is  an 
injury  to  the  poor  shopkeeper  who  has  in  part  to  pay  for  it. 
The  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  whose  folly  has  the  redeeming  quality 
of  simplicity,  says  that  the  education  in  board  schools  should 
be  like  diet  provided  for  paupers.  Let  the  children  learn  the 
three  R's  in  them,  and  then  if  parents  want  apple-pie  in  the 
shape  of  grammar,  history,  (S;c.  let  them  get  it  and  pay  for  it  as 
best  they  can." 


128  R.  H.  Quick 


Waste  of  time  in  primary  scliooh 

"30.  10.  79.  Max  Miiller  in  advocating  phonetic  spelling 
says  that  it  would  save  time  in  schools,  and  what,  he  says,  is 
so  valuable  as  time  ?  I  should  feel  inclined  to  add,  '  And 
what  so  little  valued  ? '  In  our  primary  schools  the  children's 
time  is  wasted,  often  consciously,  sometimes  even  intentionally. 
The  usual  excuse  for  the  Government  standards  is  that  th-^y 
prescribe  a  minimum,  and  the  schools  should  not  be  content  jd 
with  this  ;  but  of  course  the  whole  strength  of  the  school  is 
thrown  into  fulfilling  the  Government  requirement,  and  if  it 
*  passes  '  all  the  children  it  is  considered  to  have  reached  its 
ideal.  The  necessary  consequence  is  no  effort  is  made  to 
utilise  the  time  of  children  who  are  sure  to  pass.  Nobody 
knows  what  more  to  do  with  them.  A  child  who  learns  fast 
and  consumes  (so  to  speak)  a  year's  provision  of  teaching  in 
six  months  is  a  positive  nuisance.  Wilkinson  at  Harrow, 
speaking  of  the  children's  writing,  told  me  he  didn't  wish  the 
children  to  learn  fast,  as  the  parents  only  took  them  away 
the  sooner.  The  effect  on  the  cleverer  children  may  be  easily 
imagined.  They  have  next  to  nothing  to  do,  and  what  can 
be  worse  for  them  than  the  tedium  of  the  schoolroom  in  which 
their  energies  are  not  duly  employed  ?" 

St  Marfs   School,   Brighton 

"19  Jan.  1880.  I  went  yesterday  to  St  Mary's  Infant 
School,  Brighton.  Miss  Soames  had  mentioned  it  to  me  as  a 
particularly  good  school.  The  mistress,  she  said,  was  remark- 
ably efficient.  In  the  log  book  I  was  shown  Inspectors'  reports, 
Government  Inspectors'  reports,  very  short  indeed  but  very  com- 
plimentary ;  diocesan  Inspector  quite  ecstatic  in  his  praises  — 
everything  is  excellent,  the  mistress  '  is  indeed  a  good  mistress.' 
So  here  we  have  a  school  coming  up  pretty  closely  to  the  ideal 
of  an  infant  school  according  to  popular  notions.  The  mistress 
naturally  enough  thought  she  had  nearly,  if  not  quite,  reached 


Education  by  the  Code  129 

the  highest  point  attainable.  She  was  '  very  ambitious,'  I  was 
told,  and  actually  got  her  eldest  children  to  read  in  the  second 
standard  books.  One  would  think  to  hear  these  teachers  and 
managers  that  the  Code  with  its  six  standards  was  the  work, 
not  of  the  Privy  Council,  but  of  the  Almighty,  and  that  the 
capacities  of  children  had  been  formed  with  constant  reference 
to  it.  We  outsiders  are  very  apt  to  think  everything  absurd  that 
does  not  fall  in  with  our  notions  and  to  denounce  what  we 
think  wrong  in  the  existing  system  without  considering  the 
weak  points  of  what  we  would  substitute,  if  indeed  we  take  the 
trouble  to  ask  ourselves  what  we  really  want.  My  fulminations 
then  may  be  no  index  to  the  true  system,  but  I  am  convinced 
there  can  be  no  education  worthy  of  the  name  whilst  instruction 
is  made  the  only  object  in  schools,  and  whilst  the  instruction 
given  is  dominated  by  the  stiff  mechanism  of  the  Code.  At 
present  children  are  thought  of  merely  with  reference  to  the 
Inspectors'  examination.  In  a  similar  way  horses  in  a  racing 
stable  are  thought  of  only  with  reference  to  racing,  hounds 
with  reference  to  hunting,  pointers  with  reference  to  shooting, 
&c.  These  animals  receive  for  the  most  part  extremely  kind 
treatment  and  there  springs  up  between  them  and  those  who 
have  the  care  of  them  a  fondness  which  is  quite  independent  of 
their  professional  connection.  But  though  the  fondness  of  the 
trainers  for  their  animals  has  an  effect  here  and  there  on  them 
which  cannot  be  traced  to  the  thought  of  racing  or  shooting  or 
what  not,  the  whole  system  of  training  is  framed  with  reference 
to  those  pursuits,  and  if  the  horses  do  well  on  the  racecourse,  if 
the  hounds  hunt  well,  and  the  pointers  point  well,  the  trainers 
are  considered  good  trainers  \  if  their  animals  fail,  the  trainers 
are  sent  about  their  business.  Now  the  Code  has  produced  a 
state  of  things  analogous  to  this  in  the  schoolroom.  It  would 
be  very  absurd  to  say  that  the  way  children  are  treated  was 
governed  entirely  by  the  Code.  The  human  connection  which 
naturally  exists  between  the  young  and  benevolent  grown-up 
people  leads  to  much  in  the  schoolroom  which  would  remain 


130  R.  H.  Quick 

unaltered  if  the  Code  were  to  be  repealed.  But  the  teachers 
do  in  the  main  think  of  children  as  beings  whom  they  are  to 
'  pass '  in  certain  standards,  just  as  the  stud-groom  thinks  of 
the  racecourse.  I  suppose  from  his  recent  speech  in  the  Lords 
Mr  Lowe  (now  Lord  something  or  other)  would  say,  'Yes,  this 
is  just  what  I  intended.  All  the  talk  about  education  is  mere 
wind.  You  can't  educate  ;  you  have  no  real  power  over  the 
circumstances  which  do  indeed  educate,  and  if  you  had,  you 
are  not  intelligent  enough  to  make  good  use  of  it.  So  don't 
trouble  yourself  about  '  education '  —  let  that  take  care  of 
itself.  What  you  can  do  is  to  give  children  instruction  in 
certain  arts  which  will  be  of  great  service  to  them  in  after  life 
and  which  they  never  would  acquire  without  the  schoolmaster. 
Therefore  I  wish  to  make  the  schoolmaster  a  trainer  in  the 
three  R's  :  when  he  has  taught  children  to  read,  write  and 
cipher,  he  has  done  all  he  can  for  them.'  For  my  part  I  do 
not  wish  to  return  the  intolerance  of  men  like  Mr  Lowe  and 
Mr  Justice  Stephen  with  equal  intolerance.  I  am  aware  that 
'  educationists  '  are  apt  to  say  much  when  they  mean  little,  and 
that  education  is  not  so  entirely  in  our  hands  as  we  often  seem 
to  suppose.  But  when  every  allowance  has  been  made  for 
exaggerations  of  this  kind  we  cannot  entirely  get  rid  of  the  fact 
that  the  way  in  which  children  are  treated  and  employed  has 
an  influence  upon  them,  and  if  they  are  brought  up  with  one 
kind  of  treatment  and  employment  they  will  be  for  life  different 
to  what  they  would  have  been  if  brought  up  with  another 
treatment  and  another  employment.  If  this  is  allowed  it  must 
be  allowed  further  that  we  ought  to  consider  not  merely  the 
special  skill  to  be  acquired  by  the  employments  in  which 
we  engage  children,  but  also  the  general  effect  of  those  em- 
ployments and  of  our  regulations  about  them.  When  a  horse 
wins  the  Derby  his  stud-groom's  ideal  has  been  absolutely 
attained.  When  a  pointer  behaves  when  the  master  is  out 
shooting  entirely  to  his  master's  satisfaction  there  can  have 
been  nothing  defective  in  his  training.     But  we  cannot  measure 


Education   by  tJic  Code  131 

the  training  of  children  so  perfectly  by  the  regularity  of  their 
'  passes.'  Perhaps  it  will  be  said,  '  If  all  the  children  pass 
they  must  have  been  well  taught ;  if  they  have  been  well  taught 
you  have  brought  the  best  educational  influence  to  bear  on 
them  that  you  can  obtain.'  I  wish  I  could  think  so,  but  I 
can't ;  and  if  I  had  been  in  doubt  my  visit  of  yesterday  would 
have  convinced  me  that  teaching  maybe  very  good  if  estimated 
by  passes,  and  not  good  at  all  if  one  considers  its  general  effect. 
"The  teacher  was  a  young  woman  of  about  three  or  four 
and  twenty —  very  bright,  active  in  manner  and  energetic  in  her 
way  of  carrying  on  the  school.  She  had  a  remarkable  held  on 
the  children's  attention,  and  though  quick,  was  not  in  the  least 
harsh.  But  she  saw  in  every  child  a  being  who  could  or 
could  not  do  certain  things  specified  in  the  Code.  And  she 
was  '  ambitious  '  and  wanted  to  shew  that  she  could  get  the 
infants  to  read  in  second  standard  books.  My  impression  is 
that  the  infants  in  that  school  went  through  more  '  grind ' 
than  is  got  out  of  any  form  at  Harrow.  They  have  three  hours 
in  the  morning  and  two-and-a-half  in  the  afternoon,  and  the 
same  lessons,  the  everlasting  three  R's,  both  morning  and 
afternoon.  Now  in  this  incessant  grind  one  of  two  things 
must  happen.  The  most  probable  of  the  two  is  that  the 
teacher  {a  fo?-tiori  \\\^  pupil-teacher)  will  be  unable  to  control 
the  child's  attention  except  for  the  few  minutes  in  each  hour 
when  she  addresses  herself  to  that  child.  The  rest  of  the  time 
the  child  is  under  an  irksome  restraint  with  no  employment  for 
mind  and  body.  The  influence  of  such  schooling  must  be 
stupefying  in  the  last  degree.  But  sometimes  a  really  clever 
teacher  may  command  the  children's  attention.  Miss  X.  did 
so  yesterday  in  a  wonderful  way.  Of  course  the  children 
were  anxious  to  do  their  best  in  my  presence,  but  I  am  sure 
Miss  X.  always  fixes  their  attention  for  a  great  part  of  the 
lesson.  In  this  case  the  children  must  be  worked  too  hard. 
It  cannot  be  good  for  little  children  to  stand  or  sit  still  and 
work  hard  at  dull  work  for  so  many  hours  a  day.     Such  over- 


132  R.  //.  Quick 

exertion  must  I  should  think  be  followed  by  reaction.  The 
first  lesson  that  I  heard  was  a  reading  lesson  of  the  highest 
class  —  children  of  seven  or  slightly  under,  twenty-three  in 
number.  They  read  from  a  Reader  published  by  Blackie. 
Worse  rubbish  could  hardly  have  been  provided  for  them. 
They  read  two  stories.  The  first  was  about  a  little  girl  who 
had  a  drunken  fiither.  The  drunken  father  asked  the  child 
why  she  loved  him,  and  the  child  said,  '  Because  mother  told 
me  when  she  died.'  This  answer  turned  the  drunkard  into  a 
sober  man.  The  connection  of  the  two,  which  does  not  lie  on 
the  surface,  is  unexplained.  The  other  story  had  equally  little 
connection  with  anything  in  the  world  beyond  the  folly  of  the 
writer.  A  gentleman  offers  to  buy  a  box  of  matches  for  a 
penny  if  the  boy  will  get  him  change.  The  boy  goes  off  with 
the  shilling  and  does  not  return.  In  the  evening  another  boy 
comes  to  the  gentleman's  house  and  gives  him  fourpence,  and 
says  that  as  his  brother  was  bringing  him  change  he  was  run 
over  and  had  his  legs  broken  and  lost  all  the  change  but 
fourpence,  &c.  &c.  It  seems  this  class  sometimes  read  J.  S. 
Laurie's  Technical  Reader,  but  as  reading  is  the  thing  thought 
of,  these  books  are  used  as  the  five-finger  exercises  are  used  in 
piano  playing :  nobody  cares  for  anything  beyond  the  me- 
chanical exercises.  I  asked  the  teacher  whether  the  children 
understood  what  they  read  about.  She  said  she  thought  they 
did,  but  asked  no  questions  about  meaning,  and  absurdly  made 
them  read  through  a  lot  of  questions — Where  did  the  gentle- 
man live?  Where  is  Edinburgh?  &c.  without  requiring  any 
answers.  The  reading  though  fairly  fluent  was  except  in  two 
or  three  cases  atrocious.  Almost  all  the  children  dropped 
their  voices  a  minor  third  after  every  few  words  without  the 
smallest  care  for  sense  or  even  for  stops.  I  never  heard  anything 
more  ridiculous,  yet  Miss  X.  seemed  to  think  it  all  right. 
I'm  sure  I  don't  know  how  children  are  to  be  got  to  read  properly 
when  every  word  is  a  puzzle  which  taxes  all  their  powers,  but 
this  horrible  sing-song  could  not  possibly  lead    up    to   good 


Education  by  the  Code  133 

reading.  I  should  think  it  would  be  better  to  take  the  words 
of  the  story  at  first  as  disconnected  words  in  cohunn  and  when 
these  were  mastered  go  to  the  story.  The  teacher  should  then 
read  the  story  clause  by  clause  before  the  children  attempted 
it.  Anyhow  I  am  sure  that  Miss  X.'s  plan  must  be  wrong. 
Then  came  the  spelling.  In  this  case  the  children  answered  in 
turns.  The  spelling  was  very  good,  and  much  time  and 
attention  must  have  been  given  to  it.  But  the  climax  was 
in  the  sums.  Miss  X.  dictated  sums  such  as  add  eight 
thousand  and  forty,  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
six,  &c.  &c.,  and  similar  subtraction  sums,  and  the  children 
took  them  down  quite  correctly  and  then  worked  them  with 
equal  correctness.  She  then  went  round,  glanced  at  the 
answers  (A  and  B  sums  were  set,  by  the  way,  to  prevent 
copying)  and  marked  them  as  right  or  wrong.  Then  she  said, 
'  All  who  had  both  sums  right  stand  up.'  Only  three  children 
remained  sitting.  Miss  X.  smiled  triumphantly,  and  well 
she  might.  No  inexperienced  person  can  have  a  notion  what 
a  feat  this  was.  I  confess  I  was  quite  appalled  by  it,  not 
so  much  as  a  display  of  the  skill  of  the  teacher  as  of  the 
capacities  of  the  children.  Here  were  a  set  of  children,  not 
over  seven  years  old  and  with  no  hereditary  advantages,  going 
through  a  hard  grind  like  this  with  eagerness  and  success. 
If  the  pace  could  be  kept  up  they  would  have  the  powers 
of  Sir  Isaac  Newton  by  the  time  they  came  of  age.  And  yet 
these  are  the  children  who  will  spend  four  or  five  years  more 
over  the  three  R's,  will  at  the  end  of  that  time  have  no  great 
power  of  mastering  the  contents  of  a  book,  and  no  desire 
whatever  to  look  into  a  book  of  any  kind,  and  will  remain  for 
life  as  narrow  and  dull  and  intellectually  feeble  as  the  British 
workman  or  servant  girl  almost  invariably  is.  This  must 
surely  be  attributable,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  deadening  effect 
of  the  ordinary  school  grind.  'Yes,  but  you  must  have  grind,' 
says  an  objector ;  '  you  can't  make  everything  pleasant  in 
the  schoolroom,  and  it  is  of  not  the  slightest  use  trying.'     I 


134  ^.  H.  Quick 

answer,  '  I  daresay  you  can't  make  everything  pleasant  in  the 
schoolroom,  and  more  than  this,  I  daresay  it  would  be  a  bad 
thing  to  make  everything  pleasant  if  you  could.'  But  allowing 
that  there  must  or  should  be  some  grind  in  the  schoolroom,  I 
maintain  that  it  is  the  greatest  mistake  possible  to  have  grind, 
grind,  grind  and  nothing  else.  But  according  to  our  present 
system  the  three  R's  are  the  sole  object  of  our  school  course, 
and  while  they  are  pursued  as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  school, 
instruction  can  be  nothing  but  grind.  The  mind  of  the  young 
is  naturally  occupied  about  persons,  animals  and  things,  and  by 
degrees  the  young  acquire  knowledge  or  get  ideas  on  these 
subjects.  But  grown  people  find  that  knowledge  or  ideas 
cannot  be  put  into  circulation,  so  to  say,  unless  we  have  power 
over  certain  symbols.  Words  are  such  symbols,  and  words  are 
acquired  by  children  up  to  a  certain  point  without  effort  in 
connection  with  the  things  or  notions  they  stand  for.  But 
though  spoken  language  comes  thus  naturally,  and  may  be  left 
to  take  care  of  itself,  printed  language  and  written  language 
come  only  with  teaching.  So  again  counting,  such  as  is  wanted 
for  the  ordinary  life  of  a  child,  would  come  pretty  readily,  but 
ciphering  or  summing,  which  is  really  the  use  of  certain 
symbols,  would  not  come  without  teaching.  We  find  then 
that  the  knowledge  of  things  will  to  some  extent  come  without 
teaching,  but  the  art  of  using  symbols  will  not  come.  We 
therefore  concentrate  our  teaching  on  the  symbols  and  let  the 
things  take  care  of  themselves.  But  it  is  the  things,  in  a  broad 
sense  including  living  things,  that  interest  children,  and  when 
you  disconnect  the  symbols  and  grind  away  at  them,  keep 
the  children  an  hour  a  day  saying  tables  and  make  it  one  of 
the  main  facts  of  existence  that  knock  is  spelt  k-n-o-c-k  and 
gnat  g-n-a-t,  you  are  really  making  the  children  munch  chaff 
and  husks,  you  are  letting  the  mill  grind  away  with  nothing  in 
it.  The  old  complaint  wliich  gave  rise  to  Pope's  satire  :  — 
>  Thus  then  since  man  from  beast  by  words  is  known, 
Words  are  man's  province,  words  we  teach  alone/ 


Learning  by  j^ote  135 

was  not  more  justified  by  the  old  Latin  and  Greek  grammar 
grind  in  the  secondary  schools  than  it  is  by  the  devotion  to 
the  three  R's  in  the  primary  school. 

"  Before  you  can  approach  a  good  system  or  even  take  the 
right  road  for  one,  you  must  remember  that  the  minds  of 
children  are  affected,  not  by  symbols,  but  by  things.  Milton, 
with  all  his  respect  for  learning,  saw  that  the  study  of  words 
might  easily  be  made  too  much  of:  'Though  a  linguist  should 
pride  himself  to  have  all  the  tongues  that  Babel  cleft  the  world 
into,  yet  if  he  have  not  studied  solid  things  in  them  as  well 
as  the  words  in  the  lexicons,  he  were  nothing  so  much  to  be 
esteemed  a  learned  man  as  any  yeoman  or  tradesman  com- 
pletely versed  in  his  mother  dialect  only.'  In  a  similar  way 
these  poor  children,  when  they  have  been  ground  in  the 
three  R's  so  successfully  that  at  seven  years  old  they  are  fit 
to  pass  in  the  second  standard,  may  be  far  worse  educated 
than  other  children  who  do  not  know  their  letters  but  have 
learnt  to  observe  what  is  worth  observing,  to  reverence  what 
they  ought  to  look  up  to,  and  love  what  they  ought  to  love. 
The  main  difference  in  human  beings  is  a  difference  in  their 
interests,  and  next  to  that  is  perhaps  a  difference  in  their 
mental  associations.  But  our  school-mistresses  find  nothing 
about  interests  or  mental  associations  in  the  Code,  and  the 
children  will  not  be  required  to  pass  in  them,  so  such  irrelevant 
matters  may  be  neglected.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  just  been  in  to  take  Miss  X.  a  .  picture-roll 
(Jarrold's  Picture-roll  of  Natural  History).  It  is  a  warm 
summer  day.  The  infants  come  at  9,  and  then  it  was  11.30, 
yet  when  I  knocked  at  the  door  I  heard  them  in  full  grind. 
The  highest  class,  on  which  Miss  X.  concentrates  her 
attention  (and  with  reason,  for  they  only  have  to  pass  the 
Inspector  and  he  comes  in  about  a  fortnight),  were  engaged 
in  simultaneous  spelling  from  the  reading  books.  They  were 
working  at  a  column  of  words,  taking  one  at  a  time,  and  going 
on  in  this  way, '  b-r-o-u-g-h-t,  brought !  b-r-o-u-g-h-t,  brouglit ! ' 


136  R.  H.  Quick 

till  Miss  X.  said  '  Next  word,'  when  they  went  on.  to  the 
next.  Such  a  grim  determined  grind  I  hardly  ever  witnessed. 
And  these  poor  children  had  been  got  —  I  don't  know  how, 
certainly  not  by  harshness,  harshness  would  never  do  it  —  to 
go  in  for  the  grind  themselves.  Poor  little  dears,  they  kept 
bawling  these  ugly  sounds  with  all  the  concentration  and 
determination  to  succeed  of  a  man  working  for  a  wrangler- 
ship.  Though  it  is  not  an  hour  ago  I  can  hardly  believe 
my  own  memory,  for  the  children  kept  on  bawling  away  not 
only  when  Miss  X.  kept  an  eye  on  them,  but  just  the 
same  when  she  entered  into  conversation  with  me.  I  told 
her  about  the  roll  I  had  brought ;  she  took  it  and  opened 
it,  and  we  looked  at  the  pictures  in  such  a  way  that  most  of 
the  children  could  have  seen  them  too  :  yet  even  this  did 
not  distract  them.  They  kept  on  steadily  with  the  grind,  as 
if  they  were  little  clocks  which  could  not  help  going  till  they 
ran  down.  I  can  now  well  understand  that  they  get  over- 
excited about  the  examination.  It  seems  you  can  stimulate 
the  minds  of  children  and  of  girls  in  a  way  which  a  teacher 
of  boys  cannot  understand  and  can  hardly  believe.  But  what 
comes  of  all  Miss  X.'s  too  successful  exertions?  She  told  me 
with  a  sigh  that  she  was  just  going  to  lose  fifty  of  her  best 
children.  She  should  like  to  go  on  with  them,  she  said, 
they  were  getting  so  interesting.  But  she  sees  them  go  back 
when  they  get  to  the  boys'  school  and  the  girls'  school.  The 
master  and  mistress  tell  her  they  like  to  have  her  children, 
for  they  can  safely  leave  them  to  bad  teachers  :  children  who 
come  from  her  are  quite  safe  for  the  second  standard.  After 
the  holidays  these  children  will  be  the  flig-end  of  the  up])er 
school,  and  will  be  left  to  the  instruction  of  a  boy  or  girl  of 
fifteen.  If  this  time  were  simply  wasted,  this  might  not  be 
such  a  bad  thing  for  them,  but  just  think  of  the  feelings  of 
the  poor  children  themselves  !  They  now  take  a  great  pride 
in  their  own  performances,  and  know  that  Governess  takes 
a  pride  in   them.     Next  quarter  they  will  feel   that   they  are 


Letter  to  Lord  Spencer  137 

nowhere,  are  not  learning  anything,  are  not  cared  for  in  any 
way,  and  are  merely  being  kept  quiet  by  a  pupil-teacher. 
This  discouragement  thus  given  them  may  effectually  put 
a  stop  to  the  desire  now  so  strong  in  them  to  '  get  on.' 
Then,  again,  how  fearfully  irksome  must  be  the  restraint  of 
having  to  spend  five  or  six  hours  every  day  in  the  school- 
room without  being  allowed  either  to  work  or  to  play.  Poor 
children  !  They  will  doubdess  pass  the  second  standard  with 
the  impetus  Miss  X.  has  given  them,  but  the  pupil-teacher 
may  find  a  year  no  longer  time  than  is  necessary  to  prepare 
them  for  Standard  3." 

Reading  in  Eleme7itary  Schools 

Letter  to  Lord  Spencer,  26  July,   1880 

"  Having  a  professional  interest  in  all  educational  subjects, 
I  have  carefully  followed  the  recent  debates  and  discussions 
about  the  Code ;  but,  like  most  professional  men,  I  do  not 
value  public  opinion  very  highly  on  a  subject  about  which 
the  publjc  are  ignorant,  and  instead  of  writing  to  the  Times, 
I  presume  on  our  former  official  connection,  slight  as  it  was, 
and  address  myself  direcdy  to  your  lordship.  On  one  point 
at  least  I  heartily  agree  with  Lord  Sherbrooke.  In  the  late 
debate  he  said  that  much  more  should  be  made  of  reading 
in  elementary  education  than  of  writing  or  arithmetic.  It  is 
indeed  very  unfortunate  that  this  triple  division  should  have 
been  invented,  and  no  more  satisfactory  reason  can  be  found 
for  it  than  the  natural  law  discovered  by  the  Germans,  '  all 
good  things  are  three.'  In  point  of  fact  almost  all  the  in- 
struction children  get  about  language  and  the  meaning  of 
words,  both  separately  and  in  connection,  comes  under  the 
head  of  reading,  and  this  should  obviously  count  for  more 
than  one-third  of  the  total  instruction  given.  But  at  present 
only  a  third  of  the  grant  can  be  claimed  for  reading,  and  it 
would  seem  that  instruction  in  reading  is  less  successful  than 


138  R.  H.   Quick 

in  the  other  subjects.  From  an  article  in  Friday's  Times  I 
learn  that  '  all  the  Inspectors,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
deplore  the  mechanical  facility  devoid  of  intelligence  which 
lends  a  delusive  show  of  excellence  to  the  percentages  in 
this  subject.'  If  this  is  so,  I  have  no  doubt  you  are  con- 
templating such  alterations  in  the  Code  as  seem  likely  to 
bring  about  an  improvement,  and  I  therefore  venture  as  an 
old  schoolmaster  and  school- manager  to  propose  a  small 
change  which  would,  as  I  believe,  tend  greatly  to  improve 
the  reading. 

"  I  was  present  last  week  at  the  inspection  of  a  girls'  school 
at  Brighton,  and  I  found  that  in  testing  the  reading  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  the  Inspector's  time  and  attention  were 
spent  upon  the  doubtful  cases.  Those  girls  who  seemed  able 
to  read  easily  and  answer  a  simple  question  were  '  passed  ' 
in  a  few  seconds,  but  where  there  seemed  any  difficulty  the 
Inspector  most  patiently  examined  the  child  till  he  could 
make  up  his  mind  on  which  side  of  the  line  he  ought  to 
place  her.  Something  similar  happens  at  every  reading-lesson 
throughout  the  year.  Children,  when  they  are  sure  to  '  pass,' 
no  longer  interest  the  teacher.  The  Code  offers  no  induce- 
ment to  seek  any  further  excellence,  so  the  backward  children 
alone  are  cared  for,  and  the  teacher's  energy  is  spent,  not  in 
getting  any  one  to  read  well,  but  in  getting  all  to  read 
passably. 

*'  There  would  be  a  great  change  for  the  better  if  some 
reward  were  offered  for  excellence  beyond  the  reward  gained 
by  mediocrity.  If  the  inspector  gave  a  special  mark  of  ex- 
cellence wherever  the  reading  was  not  only  fluent  but  shewed 
understanding  of  the  passage  and  the  answers  to  the  ques- 
tions shewed  inteUigence,  this  would  be  an  inducement  to 
the  teachers  to  attend  to  the  brighter  children  as  well  as  to 
the  dull  and  backward,  and  the  quality  of  the  reading  would, 
as  I  believe,  rapidly  improve.  A  small  additional  grant  for 
each  '  excellent '  reader  would  probably  prove  quite  sufficient 


A   Debate  in   Coiniuoi2S  1 39 

stimulus,  as  both  teacher  and  pupil  would  be  in  fact  rewarded 
by  the  distinction. 

"  After  many  years'  experience  in  the  schoolroom,  I  am  well 
aware  that  any  change  is  apt  to  bring  with  it  unforeseen  incon- 
veniences ;  but  in  the  present  instance  some  change  seems  to 
me  necessary,  and  what  I  have  suggested  is  not  a  measure 
likely  to  throw  the  rest  of  the  machinery  out  of  gear.  One 
disadvantage  it  would  have  certainly.  The  introduction  of 
another  class  of  doubtful  cases  would  add  to  the  difliculty 
of  the  inspection  and  to  the  time  spent  upon  it ;  but  the 
inspectors  who  are  anxious  to  improve  the  reading  would 
probably  not  complain  of  this. 

"  One  cause  of  bad  reading  in  elementary  schools  is  the 
very  poor  supply  of  books.  The  Code  says  '  every  class 
ought  to  have  two  or  three  sets  of  reading  books.'  This 
really  fixes  the  number  at  two,  and  two  school  Readers  do 
not  afford  a  good  supply  of  reading  for  a  whole  year. 

"  The  Readers  are  no  doubt  much  better  than  they  used  to 
be,  but  it  seems  a  pity  that  the  books  which  are  the  classics 
of  childhood,  .^ sop's  Fables,  Gullivc}-''s  Travels,  Robinson 
Crusoe,  are  at  present  literally  unknown  in  elementary  schools. 
I  once  mentioned  to  Lord  George  Hamilton  how  immensely 
the  reading  would  be  improved  by  enabling  children  to  borrow 
amusing  books  from  a  school  library.  He  entirely  agreed  with 
me,  but  said  such  books  could  not  be  purchased  out  of  the 
rates.  But  if  the  need  of  such  a  library  were  admitted,  books 
would  be  very  commonly  given ;  and  if  the  inspectors  were 
directed  to  inquire  and  report  on  such  school  libraries  as 
they  found,  the  mere  inquiry  would  call  the  attention  of  the 
managers  to  this  very  valuable  aid  in  literary  instruction." 

Educational  Debate  in  the  House  of  Com/nous 

"  3  Aug.  '80.  In  to-day's  Times  is  the  report  of  the  debate 
on  Education  Estimates.  These  debates  are  sad  reading  for 
anyone  who  knows  what  education  is.     The  speakers  shew  the 


140  R.  H.   Quick 

most  complete  ignorance,  and,  worse  than  ignorance,  error  in 
their  fundamental  conception.  I  am  very  sorry  that  Mundella 
has  not  more  insight  into  things,  but  no  doubt  those  who  have 
not  had  what  is  considered  '  a  good  education '  suppose  that 
such  an  education  gives  much  more  knowledge  than  it  really 
does  give.  Such  people  feel  how  valuable  a  knowledge  of 
chemistry,  or  of  physiology,  or  of  English  literature  would  be 
to  them,  and  they  regret  that  they  did  not  go  to  a  school 
where  these  things  were  taught.  If  they  had  been  to  such  a 
school  they  would  have  found  out  that  whatever  was  taught 
there,  these  subjects  were  not  learned.  Before  there  can  be 
proper  learning  there  must  be  a  mind  capable  of  teaching, 
a  mind  capable  of  learning,  and  the  desire  of  teaching  and 
the  desire  of  learning.  But  in  most  schools  some  one  or 
more  of  these  requisites  is  wanting.  Poor  Mundella  does 
not  understand  this,  so  he  wants  to  have  all  sorts  of  things 
'  taught '  in  the  school.  The  great  debate  now  is  about  the 
'  special  subjects,'  physiology,  etc.  The  late  Government 
wish  to  limit  the  teaching  of  special  subjects  to  the  5th  and 
6th  Standards,  but  in  point  of  fact  most  children  leave  after 
passing  the  4th  Standard,  and  Mr  Mundella  thinks  it  would 
be  '  a  misfortune  for  children  to  go  to  work  after  the  4th 
Standard  without  a  knowledge  of  the  simple  facts  of  science, 
of  history,  or  the  laws  of  health.'  He  does  not  reflect  that 
the  simple  facts  of  science,  etc.  etc.  cannot  be  known  by  the 
children  of  the  poor  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  this  is  no  more 
a  misfortune  than  that  they  are  not  five  feet  high.  Unfortu- 
nately they  can  learn  some  words  which  schoolmasters  call 
simple  facts  of  science,  of  history,  or  of  the  laws  of  health, 
but  fee  ffl  funi  might  just  as  well  be  described  as  a  simple 
fact  of  science  or  a  law  of  health.  There  is  something  pa- 
thetic in  Mundella's  high  valuation  of  school  knowledge.  He 
was,  he  said,  disposed  to  attribute  a  much  higher  value  to 
what  was  called  a  '  smattering '  of  knowledge  than  many 
others  were.      And  then  he  quoted  Mr  Bates,  of  Amazonian 


A  Debate  in  Commons  141 

celebrity,  who  got  a  smattering  of  botany  at  school  and  so 
became  interested  in  the  subject.  If  an  occasional  good 
teacher  could  be  found  and  an  occasional  good  pupil,  this 
would  not  justify  the  employment  of  a  great  number  of 
teachers  who  could  not  teach  for  children  who  can't  learn. 
"  Sir  John  Lubbock  made  a  speech  replete  with  the  same 
misconception  of  education.  He  gave  the  result  of  some  in- 
quiries he  had  made  of  the  children  at  a  school  in  Lambeth. 
The  notion  of  consulting  the  children  is  not  a  bad  one,  but 
as  a  scientific  man  Sir  J.  Lubbock  might  have  been  expected 
to  investigate  more  carefully.  He  asked  the  children  in  the 
two  higher  standards,  229  in  number,  which  subject  they 
liked  best.  As  these  children  could  none  of  them  have 
learnt  all  the  subjects,  they  may  perhaps  be  considered  some- 
what doubtful  witnesses  as  to  their  comparative  attractions  ; 
but  according  to  their  answers  2  liked  grammar  best,  1 1  geog- 
raphy, 31  arithmetic,  38  history,  and  147  elementary  science. 
He  then  went  on  to  say  how  bright  the  children  looked  when 
rapidly  questioned  by  the  master.  For  my  part  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  teaching  about  things  is  likely  to  be  more  in- 
teresting than  teaching  about  '  the  completion  of  the  predi- 
cate,' but  Sir  J.  L.'s  experiment  goes  for  very  little.  He 
had  lighted  on  a  master  who  took  interest  in  that  lesson 
and  so  managed  to  interest  the  children.  Voila  tout!  If 
the  master  had  hked  teaching  arithmetic  and  had  not  liked 
teaching  elementary  science,  the  numbers  would  have  been 
reversed.  Mr  Yorke,  the  Conservative  member  for  E.  Glou- 
cestershire, was  of  opinion  that,  '  if  a  high  class  of  education 
(whatever  that  may  be)  were  given  at  the  expense  of  the 
State,  a  sort  of  communistic  principle  would  be  introduced 
which  might  ultimately  lead  to  consequences  that  could  not 
now  be  foreseen.'  A  speech  of  this  sort  is  rather  a  joke  in 
the  mouth  of  a  man  who  is  certainly  very  rich,  and  quite  as 
certainly  would  not  scruple  to  bring  up  his  sons  at  our 
public  schools  and  Universities,  which,  if  not  maintained  by 


142  R.  H.   Quick 

the  State,  are  maintained  to  a  great  extent  out  of  endowments 
left  for  the  poor." 

Aptitudes  of  Children 

"  2.  7.  80.  Brighton.  We  shall  never  do  much  in  the  way 
of  educating  the  children  of  the  poor  so  long  as  we  think  of 
nothing  but  the  three  R's,  with  or  without  useful  information, 
and  entirely  neglect  the  nature  and  aptitudes  of  the  learners. 

"  To-day  I  have  been  watching  some  children  from  the 
window.  A  house  is  building  opposite  and  a  quantity  of 
rubbish  has  been  shovelled  out  on  to  the  pavement  to  be 
carted  away.  In  to-day's  rubbish  there  have  been  bits  of 
wood  mixed  up,  I  suppose  from  the  house  which  stood  on  the 
same  spot.  About  seven  o'clock  two  young  Arabs,  one  about 
nine,  the  other  about  six,  set  to  work  to  fill  a  bag  with  these 
pieces.  They  collected  with  great  eagerness.  I  observed  that 
the  elder  of  the  two  not  only  took  delight  in  collecting  for  the 
bag,  but  also  in  helping  the  workmen,  which  he  did  by  handing 
up  large  pieces  of  brick-work  to  be  put  in  the  cart.  At  times 
other  boys  stopped  for  a  bit  and  helped  in  the  collecting, 
throwing  the  pieces  they  found  to  the  small  child  with  the  bag. 
A  newspaper  boy  spent  some  time  this  way  when  he  ought  to 
have  been  distributing  the  papers  which  were  under  his  arm. 
About  nine  o'clock  the  elder  lad  went  off  (to  school?)  and  the 
little  one  continued  the  search  alone.  He  must  have  been 
working  keenly  for  nearly  or  quite  three  hours  on  a  stretch 
when  he  first  began  to  shew  signs  of  weariness  and  took  to 
playing  with  other  children. 

"This  delight  in  collecting  combined  with  the  pleasure  they 
take  in  helping  their  elders  is  very  strong  in  children." 

A  Code  Conference 

"  20  April,  'Si.  I  am  on  my  way  to  the  Code  Conference. 
How  hard  it  is  to  get  at  collective  wisdom  on  any  subject  1 
The  Code  itself  seems  in  parts  so  ill-drawn  that  any  ordinary 


A   Code  Conference  143 

teacher  could  sit  down  and  put  on  paper  something  better 
as  fast  as  he  could  write  ;  but  I  suppose  the  Code  is  so  bad 
because  it  represents  collective  folly,  which  is  much  more 
capable  of  expression  than  collective  wisdom. 

"  What  strikes  me  very  forcibly  in  all  meetings  for  debate  is 
that  a  man's  influence  is  not  at  all  proportioned  to  his  wisdom, 
but  to  his  fondness  for  hearing  his  own  voice  and  partly  on  the 
nature  of  that  voice,  whether  it  is  a  commanding  bass  or  a 
feeble  treble.  Nobody  is  inclined  to  believe  in  the  wisdom  of 
a  man  with  a  squeaky  voice. 

"  When  anything  is  to  be  drawn  up  or  done  the  prepared 
man  always  comes  to  the  fore,  since  work  of  this  kind  cannot 
be  done  properly  off-hand,  and  twenty  or  thirty  men  often  do 
badly  and  with  great  difficulty  what  any  one  of  them  could  do 
better  and  more  easily  by  himself. 

"  When  I  got  to  the  Committee  Room  this  morning,  some 
twenty  men  were  discussing  MacCarthy's  draft  of  petition. 
Now  twenty  men  can't  speak  with  one  voice.  MacCarthy  of 
course  had  expressed  his  own  notions  and  then  everybody  who 
was  fond  of  speaking  tried  to  express  his  notion,  and  so  con- 
fusion arose,  which  ended  in  some  cases  in  MacCarthy's  words 
being  left,  in  others  in  some  queer  amalgam  expressing 
nobody's  idea  (sometimes  no  idea  at  all)  being  substituted. 

"  This  over,  Mr  Morse,  Dr  Barnes  of  Leeds  and  I  found 
ourselves  a  sub-committee  to  advise  the  Department  what 
history  and  languages  to  prescribe,  and  how  they  should 
be  taught.  Now  to  draw  up  a  plan  good  enough  for  anything 
would  have  been  a  work  of  time,  and  we  ought  to  have  settled 
on  some  principles  before  making  suggestions  of  details,  but 
there  was  no  time  for  principles  and  no  room  on  the  paper  we 
had  to  fill  for  anything  but  a  {t.\\  scrappy  sentences.  Oddly 
enough  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  nation  expressed  by  my 
Lords  declares  what  is  to  be  taught  and  gives  a  sort  of  scheme 
of  graduated  knowledge,  but  it  will  allow  itself  only  a  column, 
taking  up  less  than  the  sixth  of  a  page,  for  each  subject ;  so  it 


144  R.  H.  Quick 

was  held  we  could   not  offer   any  scheme   that  could  not  be 
squeezed  into  the  regulation  limits. 

"  We  were  an  odd  trio.  First  in  order  of  importance  (though 
not  Chairman)  was  Dr  Barnes.  He  was  a  big,  noisy  man,  with 
a  somewhat  defiant  air  of  laying  down  the  law.  He  had 
considerable  fluency  in  expression,  which  gives  a  man  a  great 
pull  on  such  occasions.  Without  having  any  very  clear  insight 
into  anything,  he  thought  he  saw  through  everything  ;  but  he 
was  not  stupid,  though  apt  to  go  off  the  point.  The  Chairman, 
Mr  Morse,  was  a  thoroughly  good  soul,  with  a  great  wish  to 
agree  with  everybody  and  to  turn  for  light  in  a-ny  direction, 
but  not  prepared  to  throw  much  light  on  anything  himself. 
His  merits  as  a  Chairman  were  however  very  great.  He  kept 
us  fairly  well  to  the  point,  formulated  things  rapidly  and  neatly 
and  wrote  them  down  in  a  capital  hand.  Finally  there  was 
myself,  not  much  of  a  man  for  a  Committee,  not  ready  by  any 
means,  and  neither  leading  nor  wishing  to  lead.  We  spent  the 
morning  over  history." 

A  Code  is  not  a  pedagogic  gospel 

"  7  May,  '8i.  I  have  been  obliged  to  give  up  MacCarthy's 
Conference.  I  think  he  is  entirely  on  the  wrong  tack.  He 
says  in  a  letter  to  me,  '  Surely  good  teaching  can  only  be  looked 
for  from  good  standards,  and  with  regard  to  good  teachers,  good 
standards  are  the  directest  method  of  getting  them.'  To  this 
letter  I  have  written  the  following  reply  — '  My  dear  MacCarthy, 
When  one  differs  from  a  man  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  know 
the  exact  point  of  difference,  and  your  letter  makes  that  quite 
plain.  I  do  not  think  that  the  best  way  to  get  good  teachers  is 
to  improve  the  standards  of  examination  of  children.  This 
notion  seems  to  me  (if  you  will  forgive  my  saying  so)  an 
exaggeration  of  an  exaggeration.  There  is  a  very  exaggerated 
estimate  current  as  to  the  good  to  l)e  got  out  of  examinations. 
In  the  old  Universities  the  notion  was  that  a  man  was  educated 


A   Code  Conference  145 

not  merely  by  studying  certain  subjects  but  by  residence  under 
peculiar  conditions  and  influences.  The  London  University 
took  up  another  line.  The  old  Universities  had  started 
examinations,  the  object  of  which  was  to  see  that  men  had 
not  wasted  their  time  while  in  residence.  These  examinations 
got  turned  into  races  for  money  prizes,  and  by  the  time  the 
London  University  was  founded  people  began  to  think  that  the 
Universities  were  simply  places  where  men  were  prepared  for 
examinations.  The  London  University  took  up  the  line  — 
Have  good  examinations  and  the  rest  will  come  right  of  itself. 
If  a  man  knows  this  and  that,  he  is  an  educated  man,  no 
matter  how  he  learned  it.  We  will  find  out  what  he  has 
learned,  and  by  the  action  of  economic  laws  the  best  method 
of  learning  and  teaching  is  sure  to  become  the  common  one. — 
The  results  have  not,  I  think,  justified  this  belief  in  the  power 
of  examinations  to  produce  the  right  teaching  and  the  right 
learning. 

" '  But  you  take  up  the  same  notion  as  the  founders  of 
the  London  University,  and  you  carry  it  a  good  deal  further. 
They  trusted  to  examinations  which  classified  the  students  and 
ascertained  which  were  very  good  in  the  subject,  which  simply 
good  and  which  passable.  But  you  expect  everything  from  an 
examination  which  takes  no  account  whatever  of  excellence, 
and  must  be  so  arranged  that  the  ordinary  child  of  poor 
parents  can  pass  it  without  any  great  strain. 

"  '  Granting  (which  I  do  not  grant)  that  a  good  examination 
is  all  that  we  need  to  secure  good  teaching,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  we  can  secure  good  teaching  by  an  examination 
which  merely  fixes  an  irreducible  minimum  and  so  fixes  it  that 
the  ordinary  child  may  pass.  What  would  become  of  University 
teaching  if  all  men  went  out  in  the  Poll?  No;  you  have 
worked  hard  at  a  subject  of  great  interest  and  great  importance, 
for  there  must,  I  suppose,  be  standards,  and  it  is  far  better 
that  these  should  be  rational  than  irrational ;  but  you  have  not 
unnaturally  come,  as  I  think,  to  attach  far  too  much  importance 

L 


146  R.  H.   Quick 

to  standards.  The  life  of  education  does  not  consist  in  the 
list  of  subjects  nor  in  the  stages  into  which  each  subject  is 
divided.  It  consists  in  a  great  measure  in  the  action  of  the 
intelligent  mind  of  the  teacher  on  the  minds  of  the  taught, 
awakening  their  intelligence  and  rendering  them  capable  of 
thinking  and  acting  for  themselves.'  " 

The  Moloch  of  payment  by  results 

"  C.  A.,  who  was  here  yesterday,  gave  anything  hut  a 
good  account  of  the  schools  in  his  district.  The  strain  on 
the  teachers  is  very  great  and  everything  is  done  with  the 
sole  object  of  getting  a  high  percentage  of  passes.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  high  pressure  the  teachers  get  very  brutal  and 
knock  the  children  about.  In  one  case  sums  were  given  out 
and  it  was  announced  that  everyone  who  had  a  mistake  in  the 
answer  would  be  caned,  and  this  was  carried  out.  When  one 
meets  with  things  of  this  kind  one  is  surprised  to  find  how 
stupid  or  savage  an  animal  man  is  ;  but  much  is  due  to  the 
incessant  grind,  which  develops  all  his  worse  feelings. 

"  The  London  School  Board  provides  Lending  Libraries 
and  sends  boxes  of  books  to  their  schools  in  turn,  but  the 
teachers  do  all  they  can  to  prevent  the  children  getting  books 
that  interest  them  ;  they  say  it  takes  them  off  their  home-work. 
So  the  key  of  the  box  is  very  commonly  lost." 

Peslalozzi 

"  Before  Pestalozzi  the  whole  Continent  had  made  the 
mistake  of  confounding  education  with  instruction  in  Uterature. 
*  Education '  had  been,  at  the  best,  a  good  training  in  the 
ancient  authors,  at  the  worst,  a  mere  drill  in  sounds.  Pesta- 
lozzi was  no  scholar,  and  when  he  set  about  '  educating '  he 
attempted  to  rear,  not  scholars,  but  men  and  women.  There 
was  something,  after  all,  in  this  change 'of  object.  No  doubt 
his  work  would  have  been  pronounced  a  terrible  failure  by  the 


Workhouse  Ckildj^en  147 

Joint  Board  or  by  H.  M.  Inspectors.  He  would  not  have  passed 
50  per  cent.,  and  his  Managers  would  have  dismissed  him  for 
earning  so  poor  a  grant.  But,  if  left  to  himself,  he  would  have 
turned  out  men  and  women  capable  of  thinking  clearly,  of  feeling 
rightly,  and  of  reverencing  all  that  is  worthy  of  reverence.  These 
are  extra  subjects  not  at  present  included  in  our  curriculum." 

Workhouse  Children 

"27  June,  '81.  To-day  I  had  a  talk  with  Mr  D.,  the  master 
of  the  Union.  He  is  strong  against  the  teaching  the  children 
get  in  our  schools.  The  children  now  go  to  the  Stoke  schools 
till  they  have  passed  in  Standard  3.  He  says  that  when  the 
boys  were  taught  in  the  Workhouse  they  had  an  industrial 
education,  and  they  were  so  much  in  request  that  he  had  more 
applications  than  he  could  supply.  Now,  he  says,  nobody 
wants  the  boys. 

"  It  is  very  hard  to  appraise  the  complaints  of  a  man  like 
D.  at  their  right  value.  First  there  is  the  general  tendency 
to  find  fault,  and  this  applies  especially  to  educational  matters, 
in  which  everyone  thinks  himself  qualified  to  be  a  judge. 
Then  there  is  the  tendency  to  disparage  instruction  which  the 
speaker  never  had  himself.  But  allowing  for  all  this  I  can't 
help  thinking  our  Code  is  not  well  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the 
poor.  If  a  boy  or  girl  works  on  to  Standard  6,  they  can't 
make  a  livelihood  at  all,  says  D.  :  nobody  wants  that  sort  of 
knowledge.  The  poor  child  who  is  brought  up  in  the  Work- 
house has  this  against  him  :  nobody  wants  him.  He  must  be 
really  useful  in  some  way  or  other,  or  he  must  stay  in  the 
Workhouse.  To  be  useful  he  must  be  able  to  do  work  of  some 
kind  or  other  at  a  cheaper  rate  than  anyone  else." 

The  Sedhergh  National  School 

"  7  J'^'^Y'  'S,v  I  ^'"'''  '""ow  likely  to  have  some  insight  into 
rural  life.  In  the  School  the  point  that  has  most  struck  me  is 
the  tremendous  waste  of  time.     I  came  across  a  reading  lesson 


148  R.  H.  Quick 

of  the  ist  Standard.  A  boy  of  about  twelve  had  a  reading 
book  as  the  children  had  and  kept  shouting  word  by  word, 
while  the  children  shouted  after  him  ;  but  I  observed  that  few 
of  the  children  looked  at  their  books.  1  asked  them  to  point 
in  their  books  to  the  word  '  crab.'  Two  or  three  only  were  on 
the  spot.  Most  of  the  others  pointed  to  '  pretty,'  that  being 
the  longest  word.  To  go  on  shouting  words  in  this  way  for 
half-an-hour  can't  do  children  much  good. 

"  I  questioned  the  highest  standard,  some  intelligent-looking 
lads,  as  follows  :  — 

Q.     How  long  will  the  holidays  last  ? 

A.     A  moonth. 

Q.     How  many  days  are  there  in  a  month? 

AA.     31,  30,  28,  28,  &c. 

Q.     How  many  days  are  there  in  June  ? 

A.     30- 

Q.     Isn't  June  a  month? 

A.     Yes. 

Q.     Rut  some  said  31  days,  some  28.     Which  were  right  ? 

A.      28,  28. 

Q.  But  June  has  30.  Now  I'm  afraid  the  sharpest  boy 
must  be  bad  and  staying  at  home.  I  know  what  the  sharp 
boy  would  have  said  when  I  asked  how  many  days  there  were 
in  a  month.     Can't  anybody  think  what  he  would  have  said? 

A.     28,  28. 

Q.  No,  he  wouldn't,  for  you  see  June,  which  is  a  month, 
has  30,  July  31,  &c.  The  sharp  boy  would  have  said,  What 
sort  of  a  month  do  you  mean?  And  suppose  I  had  answered 
a  calendar  month,  what  would  he  have  said  then? 

A.  31,  <S:c.  (By  one  boy)  He'd  have  asked  which  of  the 
months  ? 

Q.  Yes,  that's  right.  If  the  very  sharp  boy  is  away,  there 
is,  it  seems,  a  boy  here  quite  sharp  enough,  &ic. 

In  this  way  one  gets  boys  to  use  their  wits,  and  they  were 
getting  all  alive  when  the  master  said  it  was  time  to  close." 


Religions  teaching  149 


Religious  Teaching  in  Elementary  Seliools 

"16  Oct.  '83.  The  Churchmen  here  (Sedbergh)  say  that 
they  keep  up  the  National  School  simply  for  the  sake  of  the 
religious  teaching,  which  they  would  not  get  in  so  good  a  way 
if  the  school  became  a  Board  School.  \Vhat  the  religious 
teaching  now  is  they  do  not  inquire  :  that  is  the  business  of  the 
clergy. 

"  As  yet  I  have  not  attended  to  this  part  of  the  teach- 
ing, but  have  kept  to  the  Friday  service  in  church,  to  which 
however  few  children  come  :  their  parents  think  it  '  a  waste 
of  time.' 

"  To-day  I  went  to  the  school  during  the  Bible  lesson, 
which  is  supposed  to  last  fifty  minutes ;  but  I  discovered 
that  only  a  few  children  are  taught  for  the  whole  of  that 
time.  The  Government  Code  requires  the  child  to  be  under 
instruction  for  at  least  two  hours.  The  grand  defect  of  all 
this  machinery  work  is  that  in  requiring  so  and  so,  though 
that  minimum  may  be  secured,  everything  beyond  it  is  sacri- 
ficed. The  schoolmaster  takes  care  that  the  children  are 
in  school  two  hours.  But,  if  they  are,  he  is  satisfied  ;  so, 
though  the  school  is  supposed  to  begin  at  nine,  the  children 
come  in  as  they  like  during  the  scripture  hour,  and  those 
who  are  late  not  only  learn  httle  or  nothing,  but  also  disturb 
the  others  and  prevent  their  learning.  ...  It  is  quite  open  to 
doubt  whether  the  perfunctory  teaching  of  Scripture  has  much 
good  effect  on  the  children. 

"  20  Oct.  '83.  Since  writing  the  above  I  have  had  a  piece 
of  experience  which  I  have  sent  as  a  '  Note  '  to  the  Journal  of 
Education.  I  heard  Miss  M.  teaching  a  hymn.  The  children 
(Standard  2)  were  sing-songing  it  in  the  usual  elementary  school 
foshion.  I  asked  the  mistress,  '  Did  they  know  the  meaning 
of  the  words  ? '  '  No,  Sir,  they  don't  learn  meanings  in  the 
hymns.'     1  went  to  the  master  and  said,  '  Miss  M.  tells  me  the 


150  R.  H.   Quick 

children  do  not  learn  the  meaning  of  the  hymns.'  '  He  does 
not  require  the  meanings  of  the  hymns,'  said  1).,  '  (Mily  of 
the  Catechism.'     '  He?  who  is  he?''     'The  Inspector.'  " 

Sum/a  v-schoo/  Teaching 

"19.  II.  83.  Sunday-school  teaching  seems  for  the  most 
part  a  mere  wind-bag.  The  boys  come  and  either  '  say,'  or 
more  generally  do  not  '  say,'  a  set  of  words  called  the  Collect. 
The  teacher  hears  this  and  then  puts  questions  and  talks,  but 
the  questions  are  not  answered  and  the  talk  is  not  listened 
to.  The  boys  don't  seem  to  think  they  have  anything  to 
do  except  to  sit  there  and  think  of  nothing.  Yesterday  the 
Collect  was,  '  O  God,  whose  blessed  Son  was  manifested.'  Of 
course  the  boys  had  never  heard  the  words  '  manifested,' 
'  manifest,'  before.  They  were  big  lads,  and  I  tried  to  get 
some  conception  of  what  was  meant  into  their  minds.  I 
then  asked  if  our  Lord  was  alive  before  He  was  born  at 
Bethlehem.  No  answer.  I  at  length  prodded  at  a  big  lad 
till  I  somewhat  woke  him  up.  The  fire  kindled,  and  at  length 
he  spake  with  his  tongue,  '  No,  He  warn't  alive  afore  He  was 
born  ! '  The  truth  is,  the  religious  teaching  given  to  our 
young  people  is  not  good  enough  to  interest  them,  so  their 
mind  does  not  take  it  in,  and  they  remember  at  best  words 
only.  Such  words  as  '  manifestation,'  '  incarnation  '  have  to 
them  absolutely  no  meaning." 

Interest  the  one  tiling  needful 

"22  April,  '85.  Tamworth.  I  had  to  address  the  children 
at  Sunday-school  on  Sunday,  but  did  not  know  how  to  set 
about  it.  In  the  day-school  a  certain  number  of  statements 
are  communicated  to  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  can  par- 
tially reproduce  them  as  far  as  words  go,  but  their  interest  has 
never  been  awakened,  and  I  fancy  their  minds  never  work 
on  anything  connected  with  religion.  There  are  cases,  no 
doubt,  where  some  unsuspected   working  is  going  on,  but  I 


Interest  1 5 1 

am  convinced  that  in  the  majority  of  children  there  are  no 
ideas,  and  consequently  no  interest  connected  with  their  re- 
ligious teaching. 

"  The  religious  and  intellectual  training  of  the  poor  will,  I 
suppose,  be  understood  some  day.  It  seems  to  me  the  first 
thing  necessary  for  understanding  it  will  be  to  throw  to  the 
winds  all  that  we  have  done  hitherto  and  to  start  afresh. 

"  You  can't  train  the  mind  unless  the  mind  is  at  work. 
Unless  interest  is  aroused,  the  mind  (of  the  young  at  least) 
does  not  and  cannot  work. 

"  If  these  two  axioms,  as  I  consider  them,  be  applied  to 
the  teaching  and  learning  in  elementary  schools,  it  will  be 
found  that  out  of  the  five  hours  a  day  or  25  hours  a  week 
spent  in  school,  hardly  an  hour  is  given  to  mental  training. 
And  what  is  the  outcome  of  the  teachings?  When  the  result 
is  considered  successful,  the  boy  has  learnt  to  read  mechani- 
cally but  with  pure  indifference  to  the  sul)ject-matter,  perhaps 
with  no  consciousness  of  it.  He  has  learnt  to  write,  a  very 
great  gain  no  doubt.  He  has  learnt  to  '  do  sums.'  Un- 
fortunately he  not  only  has  no  insight  whatever  into  the 
principles  of  calculation,  but  he  has  spent  so  much  time  in 
working  rules  without  understanding  that  he  cannot  manage 
the  simplest  computation  in  ordinary  life  unless  it  is  like  a 
*  sum  in  the  book,'  and  he  can  seldom  work  a  long  sum 
of  any  kind  fast,  neatly,  and  accurately.  He  can  spell  fairly 
well,  but  though  he  has  learnt  to  spell  many  words  which 
are  not  used  in  his  out-of-school  fife,  he  has  the  very  vaguest 
conception,  if  any  at  all,  what  those  words  mean,  and  often 
a  little  examination  will  shew  that  he  has  wrong  notions  about 
them.  As  to  grammar  he  has  no  notion  at  all,  but  has  ac- 
quired a  sort  of  knack  or  habit  of  guessing  right  when  he  is 
asked  what  part  of  speech  a  word  is.  This  scholastic  art  is 
not  a  very  valuable  one,  and  it  requires  constant  practice  to 
keep  it  up.  If  history  and  geography  have  been  taught,  the 
boy  can  give  the  dates  of  accession   of  kings  and  queens  of 


152  R.  H.   Quick 

England  with  principal  events  in  their  reigns,  he  can  tell  the 
county  towns  of  England,  &c.  &c*.  ;  but,  though  he  may  be 
proud  of  his  learning,  he  has  no  interest  in  any  character  or 
event  in  history,  or  in  any  place  beyond  his  dwelling-place, 
and  his  so-called  knowledge  is  merely  verbal  knowledge,  which 
will  soon  vanish  and  leave  no  trace  behind.  The  children 
are  at  school  about  1000  hours  a-year,  so  they  receive  in 
their  school  course  four  or  five  thousand  hours'  teaching, 
and  this  is  the  outcome  in  favourable  instances  !  Meantime 
the  children  have  been  stunted  in  their  intellectual  growth  by 
the  dull  monotony  they  have  gone  through." 

A  Hastings  Board  School 

"  8  April,  '86.  I  went  to-day  with  Mr  Arnold  to  a  school  of 
which  Mr  W.  Evans  is  headmaster.  About  240  boys,  all  lively 
and  doing  good  work,  I  think.  The  chief  things  I  noted 
were:  (i)  Mr  Evans  gives  all  boys  a  right  to  appeal  from 
an  assistant  to  himself.  (2)  For  punishment  he  gives  cubing 
numbers.  The  numbers  get  higher  and  higher,  as  the  num- 
ber of  offences  gets  higher.  Assistants  can  set  them,  but 
must  have  them  recorded  by  the  headmaster.  (3)  I  asked 
Mr  Evans  what  Reading  Books  he  used.  He  said,  '  One  by 
our  Inspector.'  [It  was  published  by  Griffith  and  Farran ; 
no  name  of  author  given.]  '  I  don't  like  it,  but  it's  politic 
to  use  it.'  " 

Elementary  Education  in  England  worked  by  machinery 

"An  American  observer^  has  distinguished  between  the 
English  and  Swiss  systems,  and  says  that  the  Swiss  have 
developed  their  system  from  the  standpoint  of  the  child,  the 
English  from  the  standpoint  of  the  State.  We  ask,  '  How, 
for  our  own  advantage  and  the  State's,  can  the  child  be  made 
to  consume  least  and  produce  most?'     They  ask,  '  How,  for 

1  Elvira  Carver. 


Workhouse  Schools  1 5  3 

the  child's  own  sake,  can  his  mind  be  best  developed  and  his 
character  be  best  perfected  ? '  I  don't  think  even  Mr  Lowe 
had  any  clear  conception  of  what  he  wanted  to  do,  except 
to  get  as  much  as  possible  for  the  State's  money,  and  to 
gauge  this  in  the  most  definite  way.  But  the  attempt  accu- 
rately to  gauge  results  and  pay  for  them  in  strict  arithmetical 
ratio  has  been  the  ruin  of  our  elementary  education.  By  slow 
degrees  some  definite  perception  of  this  has  been  arrived  at 
by  the  two  or  three  officials  who  have  the  power  to  make 
changes.  Few  of  our  ministers  know,  few  care,  about  educa- 
tion, and  they  are  mere  figure-heads,  while  men  like  Fitch 
and  Sharpe  are  the  rudder.  Unfortunately  Fitch  and  Sharpe 
have  now  worked  the  machine  so  long  that  they  think  we 
could  not  do  without  it ;  so  they  simply  attempt  to  tinker  it 
and  make  it  less  mechanical.  Their  last  attempt  was  well 
meant,  but  I  am  told  and  can  easily  believe  it  has  proved 
a  failure.  The  head  Inspector  settles  whether  a  school  is 
'  excellent,'  '  good,'  or  '  fair,'  or  does  not  deserve  any  merit 
grant.  This  enormously  increases  the  power  of  the  Inspector, 
and  it  was  thought  he  would  use  this  power  to  mitigate  the 
mechanical  working  of  the  Code;  but  after  all  it  is  so  much 
easier  to  decide  by  percentages  than  by  general  impressions 
or  anything  else,  that  the  teachers  find  as  a  matter  of  fact 
they  have  no  chance  of  an  '  excellent '  without  a  high  per- 
centage, and  the  machine  grinds  on  at  the  same  high  pressure 
as  before." 

Workhouse  Schools 

"  Much  has  been  made  of  Spinoza's  '  Our  business  is  not 
to  praise  or  blame,  but  to  understand.'  Spinoza  is  not  re- 
sponsible, as  he  was  not  laying  down  a  general  law.  It  is 
our  business  sometimes  to  praise,  sometimes  to  blame  ;  but  it 
is  our  business  first  to  understand,  and  very  often  thorough 
understanding  brings  so  many  qualifications  that  it  seems  to 


154  R.  H.   Quick 

take  all  heartiness  out  of  both  our  censure  and  our  praise. 
Lately  I  have  had  a  talk  with  the  parish  doctor  about  Work- 
house children.  He  thought  there  was  some  taint  in  the 
pauper  children,  and  that  no  good  could  be  expected  of 
them.  When  they  were  put  out  in  life  they  always  gravi- 
tated back  to  the  Workhouse.  Did  the  doctor  '  understand '? 
I  think  not.  He  was  right,  no  doubt,  about  the  phenomena, 
and  very  sad  they  are.  No  doubt,  too,  the  children  of  degraded 
parents  shew  a  stronger  tendency  to  the  vices  of  their  parents 
than  you  would  find  in  children  who  come  from  a  respectable 
class.  But  does  this  taint  account  for  everything?  On  the 
contrary,  I  think  that  all  the  phenomena  might  be  explained 
apart  from  heredity.  The  Guardians  would  gladly  send  the 
children  to  the  National  School,  but  the  Managers  of  the 
National  School  object.  Consequently  some  40  children  of 
all  ages  varying  from  3  to  14  or  15  are  taught  by  a  single 
mistress,  who  ex  vi  teniiiiii  must  be  a  very  inferior  mistress. 
School  in  the  Workhouse,  as  I  have  learnt  by  inspection,  is 
an  unintelligent,  dull,  dismal  grind,  and  no  relaxations  or 
amusements  of  any  kind  are  provided  out  of  school.  Such 
dulness  is  quite  sufficient  cause  to  account  for  the  subsequent 
failures  in  life." 

Redhill  Boys''  School 

"  1 1.  5.  88.  I  have  said  somewhere  that  the  true  rule  is  not  to 
say  we  must  neither  praise  nor  blame,  but  understand  :  but  we 
should  be  careful  not  to  praise  or  blame  before  understanding. 

."  I  therefore  want  to  understand  our  elementary  school 
system,  but  I  can't.  I  have  just  met  Mr  Gordon,  who  is 
vicar,  and  virtually  runs  these  schools  in  order  to  keep  out 
a  board  school.  I  point  out  to  him  that  a  vast  amount  of 
the  children's  time  is  wasted.  '  So  it  is  in  all  schools,'  he  says. 
'  You  can't  keep  children  always  at  work.  They  are  resting 
in  school  or  getting  into  habits  of  discipline,  &:c.  &c.  Tiiey 
don't  waste  all  their  time,  for  they  get  to  do  certain  things.' 


Red  hill  155 

"  I  wish  to  put  down  here  as  colourless  an  account  as  pos- 
sible of  what  I  found  when  I  visited  the  schools  to-day. 

"  Drawing-lesson  was  going  on.  At  one  end  of  the  room 
41  boys  were  sitting  round  a  cone  which  they  were  supposed 
to  be  copying.  The  teacher  walked  round  and  looked  at 
the  attempts,  but  most  of  the  boys  did  not  do  anything  at 
all  but  whisper  to  each  other.  Next  were  32  boys  under 
another  teacher,  drawing  a  cube  under  similar  conditions. 
Next,  Standards  i  and  2  (39  and  26)  were  under  one  young 
woman  and  were  also  drawing,  or  supposed  to  be.  I  raised 
the  objection  that  the  teacher  had  too  large  a  number  (65) 
to  attend  to,  but  the  headmaster  held  that  this  was  neces- 
sary, as  the  two  standards  had  to  be  examined  together. 
Standard  i  drew  on  slates,  Standard  2  on  paper.  I  ob- 
served that  some  of  Standard  i  had  only  little  scraps  of 
pencil.  The  headmaster  said  the  teacher  could  not  possibly 
be  expected  to  attend  to  such  minutii^,  it  would  take  up  all 
her  time.  I  am  anxious  to  avoid  the  frame  of  mind  of  the 
man  who  goes  on  denouncing  what  is,  without  suggesting  how 
things  might  be  made  better.  About  this  dnwing,  1  say  it  is 
fearfully  dull.  '  Of  course,'  says  Mr  Gordon,  '  there  is  a  dull 
part  to  everything.  It  is  a  fine  discipline  to  have  to  tackle 
the  dull  part  of  a  subject  and  get  through  it.  This  is  the 
alphabet  of  drawing.  The  children  will  be  able  to  draw 
when  they  have  been  put  through  it.'  But  can't  they  get 
the  power  in  any  other  way?  What  is  the  use  if,  in  teaching 
the  alphabet,  you  so  disgust  the  pupil  with  the  subject  that 
he  never  afterw:irds  will  touch  it?  And  the  waste  of  time? 
If  a  young  woman  has  65  children  to  teach  and  no  method 
but  that  of  dodging  about  and  looking  at  the  paper  or  slate 
of  each  separately,  this  means  dreary  waste  and  loss  which 
seems  to  me  quite  indefensible." 


156  R.  H.  Quick 


A  Diocesan  Inspector 

"  30  Oct.  '84.  I  have  just  assisted  at  a  Diocesan  Inspector's 
examination,  the  worst  form  conceivable.  K.  began  with 
Standard  i..  which  he  examined  at  some  length  on  Adam  and 
Eve.  Answering  good.  In  N.  T.  answering  only  moderate. 
The  other  children  had  meanwhile  something  to  write  on  slates, 
but  soon  finished  this  and  were  restless.  The  children  then 
said  Psalm  c.  from  the  Bible  version,  and  K.  preached  about 
it.  Then  the  hymn  '  Awake  my  soul.'  K.  questioned  in  this 
fashion:  'Sloth  means  idleness,  doesn't  it?'  With  the  next 
division  he  preached  for  ten  minutes  on  thanksgiving.  Then 
Abraham.  '  Abraham  was  able  to  resist  temptation,  wasn't  he  ?  ' 
If  the  examiner  did  not  positively  prompt  the  answer  he  wanted, 
the  answer  was  mostly  wrong  :  *  You  ask  God  to  forgive  you 

as    you    forgive ?'     This    produced   a   volley   of  'Him.' 

When  he  asked  about  Joseph  there  was  no  answer  at  all. 
'Teach  us  thy  works  to  do.  What  are  His  works?'  Chorus  : 
*  Miracles.'  K.  preached  about  keeping  the  good  seed  in  our 
hearts.  '  If  we  don't  lead  good  lives,  the  seed  is  of  no  use, 
is   it?'     Asking   about   the    name  Joshua,  K.  said,   'It's    the 

same   as   another   name,    isn't    it?     That    name    is   Je ?' 

This  produced  '  Jehovah.'  " 

National  Education,  a  pure  bureaucracy  tempe?-ed  by 
theorists 

"26.  5.  89.  'Truly  a  thinking  man  is  the  worst  enemy 
the  Princes  of  Darkness  ever  have.'  So  says  Carlyle  in  Sartor 
Resartus,  but  this  is  not  the  English  theory.  In  the  school- 
room especially  every  old  practice,  however  obviously  absurd, 
is  maintained  till  it  is  thrust  out  by  a  clamour  for  something 
else.  In  elementary  education  custom  is  checked  by  regulations 
emanating  from  '  my  Lords.'  '  My  Lords '  are,  I  suppose, 
practically  the   permanent   officials  and   the  head    inspectors. 


Faults  of  Class   Teaching  157 

The  two  '  bosses '  in  Parliament  are  mostly  like  the  present 
ones,  Lord  Cranbrook  and  Sir  W.  Hart  Dyke,  men  who 
have  no  more  knowledge  of  education  or  care  about  it  than 
the  ordinary  Enghsh  gentleman.  The  officials  see  things  from 
a  bad  standing-point  for  understanding  them,  and  the  head 
inspectors  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees.  So  as  a  rule 
the  Department  is  cautious.  A  positive  man  like  Mr  Lowe 
may  indeed  introduce  and  carry  through  some  monstrous 
change  that  may  render  education  impossible  for  thirty  years 
or  so,  but  no  one  would  be  allowed  to  do  this  unless  he 
were  totally  ignorant.  If  he  had  the  smallest  knowledge  he 
would  raise  all  the  influential  people  against  him  as  a  theorist. 
But  fortunately  Mr  Lowes  are  scarce,  and  generally  speaking 
there  is  no  tendency  to  over-bold  legislation.  The  three  forces 
at  work  are  mainly:  (i)  The  officials  who  want  to  pacify  the 
public,  and  so  long  as  this  can  be  done  leave  things  as  they 
are.  (2)  The  public  which  grumbles,  but  does  not  know 
what  it  wants.  (3)  The  men  who  have  studied  the  subject, 
men  like  S.  S.  Laurie,  who  are  suspected  as  being  too  theo- 
retical. However,  they  have  some  influence,  and  in  the  future 
they  will  have  much  more.  But  if  they  were  allowed  to  go 
their  own  way  they  would  no  doubt,  in  some  particulars,  lay 
themselves  open  to  the  charge  of  introducing  arrangements 
that  '  would  not  work,'  and  be  bowled  over  by  the  officials." 


158  R.  //.  Quick 

PUBLIC   SCHOOLS 

Preparation  and  Class  Teaching 

"  A  very  common  cause  of  failure  in  class  teaching  is  this, 
that  the  master  considers  the  lesson  chiefly  as  an  examination 
of  what  the  boys  have  learnt  for  themselves.  If  you  ask  a 
boy  any  evening  what  he  has  to  do  for  the  morrow  you  will 
perhaps  find  that  he  is  expected  to  get  through  in  an  hour  and 
a  half  an  amount  of  work  which,  if  he  concentrated  all  his 
thoughts  on  the  subject,  he  would  not  do  satisfactorily  in  two 
hours.  Of  course  boys  do  not  give  all  their  thoughts  to  the 
subject  and  they  do  not  do  their  work  satisfactorily.  '  Doing 
an  exercise '  is  little  better  than  scribbling  words  at  random  at 
the  dictation  of  an  elder  boy.  '  Preparing  construing '  means 
running  the  eye  over  the  chapter  to  be  translated  and  turning 
out  the  meaning  of  half-a-dozen  strange-looking  words.  So 
that  preparation  with  most  boys  in  the  class  is  a  farce.  All  they 
learn  they  learn  with  the  master.  If  the  master  is  sufficiently 
skilful  to  secure  their  attention  to  what  is  going  on  for  the 
hour  they  are  in  class,  they  learn  a  good  deal  after  all.  But  if 
this  is  the  case,  it  would  be  well  if  masters  made  their  arrange- 
ments accordingly.  If  the  exercises  which  have  been  written 
are  not  also  worked  viva  voce  in  class  they  do  many  boys  no 
good  whatever.  If  the  boys  cannot  work  them  readily  viva  voce 
they  are  not  fit  to  go  on  to  the  next  exercise.  Again  with  the 
construing,  it  is  a  sheer  waste  of  time  to  go  on  the  examina- 
tion theory  with  most  boys.  They  know  nothing  about  the 
Latin  when  they  come  up,  and  the  master  must  recognise  this 
fact,  and  instead  of  carrying  on  a  constant  squabble  with  them 
about  it,  he  must  ask  them  that  which  they  do  know  and  take 
care  that  the  amount  of  this  increases  before  they  leave  him. 
I  suppose  one  of  the  commonest  faults  of  young  teachers,  as  of 
young  examiners,  is  to  ask  only  or  chiefly  such  things  as  he 
thinks  the  boy  questioned  may  not  know." 


B  21  Hying  159 


Preparation,  Four  rules  for 

"  Is  it  possible  to  secure  good  preparation  without  fear  of 
punishment?  I  think  it  is  if  the  following  requisites  were 
complied  with:  i.  The  tasks  should  be  very  definitely  set. 
2.  They  should  be  well  within  the  boys'  power.  3.  Good 
preparation  should  in  all  cases  be  noted  by  the  teacher  and 
also  bad  preparation,  so  that  there  should  be  no  *  chancing 
with  success.  4.  The  work  should  not  be  allowed  to  get 
monotonous." 


Knocking  into  shape 

"  One  terribly  natural  incident  [in  a  story  of  /Vscott  Hope's] 
is  one  of  the  boys  drawing  the  hero  out  on  the  subject  of 
home  and  ridicuHng  what  he  had  learnt.  How  well  I  remember 
what  I  suffered  in  this  way  nearly  thirty  years  ago  !  A  boy's 
feelings  are  very  acute  on  everything  connected  with  home, 
and  so  with  diaboHcal  instinct  the  tormentor  always  jeers  his 
victim  about  his  '  dear  mammy '  or  tries  to  shew  that  his 
father  is  some  low  fellow  —  perhaps  even  a  shopkeeper.  Such 
are  the  humours  of  ingenuous  youth  !  My  own  school  life 
taught  me  that  a  boy  is  happy  or  miserable  according  as  he  is 
liked  or  disliked  by  his  companions.  Now  the  schoolboy's 
besetting  sin  is  the  idolatry  of  physical  strength.  Therefore  a 
delicate,  weak,  timid  boy  cannot  be  popular.  Such  boys  when 
left  to  the  '  public  school  system'  do  not  get  much  good  out  of  it. 
The  essence  of  that  system  seems  to  be  that  the  masters  shall 
have  as  little  to  do  with  the  boys  as  possible.  A  master  in  one 
of  Ascott  Hope's  tales  maintains  that  what  bullying  still  goes  on 
under  this  system  is  rather  a  good  thing  than  otherwise.  '  A 
small  boy  who  comes  to  school  has  of  course  troubles  to  go 
through,  and  he  must  go  through  them.  What  does  he  come 
to  school  for  but  to  get  knocked  into  shape  and  have   the 


i6o  R.  H.   Quick 

conceit  taken  out  of  him?'  Whether  he  comes  or  not  for  the 
purpose,  he  does  get  knocked  into  shape,  but  into  what  shape  ? 
Not  surely  the  best  possible  or  the  one  suited  to  all  alike. 
And  the  shape  moreover  is  a  more  or  less  simulated  one  ;  the 
boy  has  too  often  to  simulate  bad  qualities  and  to  dissimulate 
good.  A  very  common  notion  exists  in  the  minds  both  of 
boys  and  masters  about  taking  the  conceit  out  of  a  new  boy ; 
but  this  means  only  compelling  him  to  give  up  or  conceal  his 
own  peculiarities." 

Punishments 

"  Perhaps  the  most  demoralising  thing  about  the  occupa- 
tion of  a  school  teacher  is  his  constant  familiarity  with  mala 
prohibita  which  must  be  kept  under  by  punishment.  So  long 
as  he  is  in  good  spirits  he  is  tempted  to  overlook  these,  but 
supposing  he  resists  this  temptation,  he  may  yet  give  what 
punishment  seems  necessary  without  shewing  any  anger  against 
the  offender.  But  his  dislike  to  punishing  for  trifles  may  lead 
him  into  the  mistake  of  trying  to  make  simulated  anger  do  the 
work  of  punishment.  Out  of  mere  kindness  he  '  blows  up  '  or 
'jaws'  a  boy  instead  of  punishing  him.  This  of  course  he 
cannot  do  good-temperedly,  so  the  mala  prohibita  become  at 
once  conftised  with  the  jna/a  in  se.  And  the  effort  to  avoid 
punishing  by  substituting  'jaw'  can  never  be  effectual,  so  the 
master  only  risks  his  own  good  temper  by  endeavouring  to 
spare  the  boys.  When  a  master  is  out  of  temper  setting 
punishments  for  mala  prohibita  comes  naturally  enough  to  him 
and  is  a  relief  to  his  feelings,  but  then  he  is  too  apt  to  treat 
a  boy  who  whispers  in  class  as  he  should  treat  a  boy  who  has 
been  telling  lies. 

"The  right  plan  is  to  annex  certain  penalties  to  those 
trifling  offences  which  will  become  inconveniently  frequent  if 
not  noticed,  and  then  to  exact  these  penalties  with  a  mechanical 
and  so  feelingless  precision.     In  this  way  punishments  may  be 


Theory  of  punishmejit  i6i 

both  set  and  taken  good-temperedly.  So  long  as  a  boy  does 
not  think  that  he  is  '  spited '  he  no  more  feels  angry  when  he 
is  kept  in  by  a  master  than  when  he  is  kept  in  by  the  weather. 
It  is  however  very  much  harder  to  punish  in  this  mechanical 
way  than  one  would  suppose.  One  is  always  tempted  to  make 
exceptions  in  favour  of  boys  one  likes  or  of  boys  who  do  their 
work  well  and  stand  high  in  their  form.  In  this  case  one  has 
a  tendency  to  shut  one's  eyes,  or  if  that  is  impossible,  to  say, 
*  The  next  time  you  do  so  and  so,'  &:c.  '  Forbear  threatening ' 
would  be  a  very  good  rule  for  the  schoolmaster,  but  one  ex- 
ceedingly hard  to  abide  by.  I  have  read  a  story  somewhere 
(was  it  in  Basil  Hall?)  of  a  captain  who  ordered  a  man  to  be 
flogged.  The  man  pleaded  that  it  was  the  first  time  there  had 
been  anything  against  him.  'Then  I  certainly  shan't  let  you 
off,'  said  the  captain,  '  I  never  forgive  a  first  offence.'  The 
common  notion  that  first  offences  ought  to  be  pardoned  seems 
to  be  based  on  two  separate  pleas  :  ist,  that  the  offender's 
previous  good  conduct  gives  him  a  certain  merit  which  should  be 
allowed  to  outweigh  his  first  offence  ;  2nd,  that  so  long  as  he 
belongs  to  the  unpunished  he  has  a  strong  inducement  to 
avoid  the  degradation  of  punishment,  and  this  inducement  a 
single  punishment  would  destroy.  I  can't  decide  now  whether 
the  captain  or  people  in  general  have  the  best  of  it,  but  I  know 
that  threatening  to  do  so  and  so  '  next  time '  is  a  bad  plan  in 
a  school.  Of  course  there  are  cases  where  the  law  has  not 
hitherto  been  clear  and  no  other  course  is  open,  but  even  then 
the  master  must  take  care  that  in  his  anxiety  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  the  offence  he  does  not  threaten  more  than  he 
will  be  able  to  carry  out." 

Theory  of  punishment 

"  As  James  Mill  has  pointed  out,  the  punishment  theory 
assumes  that  to  do  so  and  so  will  be  unpleasant  to  boys,  and 
aims  at  making  it  less  unpleasant  than  not  to  do  the  thing. 
The    Reformers   say,    '  Cease    to  make    the  work   unpleasant 


1 62  R.  H.   Quick 

and  you  may  give  up  punishing ' ;  but  this  is  a  non  sequitur. 
If  a  boy  is  to  do  his  work  because  he  feels  pleasure  in  doing  it, 
he  must  find  more  pleasure  than  he  would  find  in  anything 
else.  And  here  the  case  of  the  enemies  of  punishment 
breaks  down  entirely,  for  it  is  only  Lady  Jane  Greys  who 
prefer  Plato  to  hunting,  and  even  if  I  could  get  my  boys  to 
like  reading  Moliere,  I  couldn't  possibly  get  most  of  them  to 
like  it  better  than  skating  (the  present  amusement)  or  watching 
a  cricket  match.  All  one  can  say  is  that  the  ordinary  forces 
tending  in  opposite  directions  are  desire  to  do  other  things  and 
fear  of  punishment.  If  one  of  these  forces  is  lessened  the 
other  may  be  lessened  also." 

Repression  {the  badge  of  all  our  tribe) 

"  One  is  so  constantly  brought  across  boys  in  the  way  of 
•  repression  that  one  gets  into  a  state  of  permanent  annoyance 
and  dejection  of  manner.  This  is  bad  for  both  parties.  I  try 
never  to  repress  when  I  can  help  it,  but  it  is  difficult  not  to  get 
into  a  habit  of  repression.  When  Mr  Squeers  found  Snawley 
junior  doing  nothing,  and  boxed  his  ears  with  a  caution  not  to 
do  it  again,  he  was  merely  acting  in  what  seems  to  me  with  my 
present  lights  the  most  natural  manner  in  the  world.  One's 
function  is  pretty  much  like  that  of  the  weighted  top  of  a  gas 
receiver.  There  is  a  pressure  from  below  of  a  hundred  boys  trying 
to  break  out  into  all  kinds  of  disorder.  Against  this  one  has 
to  exert  a  constant  pressure  downwards.  Thus,  however  good 
the  machinery  of  the  place  may  be,  there  is  a  certainty  that 
with  boys  it  will  keep  on  hitching.  There  will  always  be  boys 
who  can't  find  their  boots,  who  have  no  pens,  who  have  lost 
or  left  their  books  somewhere.  If  no  punishment  is  given  the 
carelessness  becomes  unbounded.  If  it  is  given,  one  is  for 
ever  coming  in  contact  with  the  boys  in  a  way  disagreeable  to 
both  parties.  The  wear  and  tear  of  all  this  completely  knocked 
all  the  elasticity  out  of  me  a  few  days  ago  when  I  was  '  master 


Impositions  163 

of  the  week'  [at  Cranleigh].  If  one's  spirits  give  way,  all  is  up. 
Everything  one  has  to  do  becomes  a  bore,  and  one  becomes 
oneself  an  awful  bore  to  those  under  one.  One  loses  one's 
hold  of  boys  and  vainly  endeavours  to  get  it  again  by  setting 
impositions." 

Impositions 

"As  to  impositions,  I  am  inclined  to  think  they  are  not  of 
any  great  use.  They  are  very  commonly  set  rather  as  a  vent 
for  the  annoyance  felt  by  the  master  than  for  any  good  effect 
they  are  supposed  to  have  on  the  boy.  Perhaps  it  is  well  to  be 
respected,  just  as  a  wasp  is,  because  one  can  sting  when  one 
likes,  but  sucl^  respect  as  this  is  destructive  of  good  feeling. 
To  prevent  punishments  becoming  a  mere  outlet  for  his  own 
irritation  it  is  necessary  for  a  master  to  be  as  uniform  as 
possible.  If  certain  transgressions  are  sure  to  bring  certain 
punishments,  neither  master  nor  scholar  will  look  on  the 
punishment  as  the  redress  of  a  personal  grievance.  The 
certainty  of  punishment  is  much  more  important  than  its 
amount.  A  boy  is  not  deterred  from  whispering  in  class  &c. 
by  the  risk  of  a  hundred  lines,  but  he  is  by  the  certainty  of 
thirty." 

Absence  of  system  in  public  schools 

"  I  do  not  consider  the  instruction  at  Cranleigh  altogether 
satisfactory.  As  at  most  schools,  each  man  teaches  his  form 
what  he  thinks  best  in  the  way  he  thinks  best,  if  he  thinks  at 
all  about  it.  The  instruction  given  in  each  form  should  have 
its  place  in  a  connected  whole,  and  when  a  boy  has  got  up  to 
a  certain  point  he  should  find  a  continuation  of  the  same 
instruction  in  the  form  above.  The  Hurst  plan  of  making 
different  men  responsible  for  the  instruction  in  different 
departments  has  much  to  commend  it.     Nothing  can  be  worse 


1 64  R.  H.  Quick 

than  the  plan  we  have  at  Cranleigh,  wliere  nobody  is  responsible 
for  anything,  except  the  headmaster,  and  forms  are  taken  by  a 
series  of  masters  in  the  most  promiscuous  way." 

Boarding  v.  Day  Schools 

"  There  is  another  great  advantage  which  the  masters'  houses 
have  over  the  school  boarding-houses.  It  is  very  desirable,  in 
some  cases  most  important,  that  a  boy  should  not  be  lost  sight 
of  in  a  crowd,  and  that  there  should  be  some  grown  person 
who  knows  more  about  him  than  that  he  is  in  the  school  and 
has  not  been  recently  flogged.  The  boy  also  should  feel  when 
he  is  in  any  difficulty  that  there  is  someone  on  whose  con- 
sideration he  has  a  larger  claim  than  he  could  have  in  common 
with  two  or  three  hundred  school-fellows.  At  Hurstpierpoint 
the  excellent  plan  has  been  adopted  of  connecting  a  masters' 
sitting-room  and  bedroom  with  each  dormitory,  so  that  each 
'  master  of  a  dormitory  '  has  a  set  of  boys  who  are  his  special 
charge.  I  believe  a  similar  arrangement  has  been  attempted 
elsewhere,  even  when  the  architect  has  done  his  best  to  render 
it  impracticable.  By  this  means  the  danger  of  a  boy's  being  lost 
sight  of  in  the  crowd  is  partly  avoided,  but  not  so  surely  as  if  he 
lived  with  a  master  who  was  put  in  charge  of  him  by  the  parents. 
But  it  seems  to  me  very  easy  to  exaggerate  the  advantages 
of  a  master's  house.  In  examining  a  distinguished  Harrovian 
(now  at  rest  from  his  labours)  the  Public  School  Commissioners 
were  surprised  by  his  professing  to  stand  /'/;  ioco  paren/is  to  as 
many  as  fifty  or  sixty  boys.  What  surprised  them  was  the 
number,  and  it  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  either  to  the 
Commissioner  or  to  the  master  that  no  one  can  stand  in  the 
place  of  a  parent  to  any  boy  who  has  an  actual  parent  to  look 
after  him.  Mutual  affection  belongs  to  the  very  essence  of  the 
relation  between  parent  and  child,  and  it  is  absurd  for  anyone 
who  neither  loves  nor  is  loved  by  the  child  to  talk  of  filling  the 
place  of  a  parent.     Whether  the  master  has  six  boys  in    his 


French  viezvs  of  Ptiblic  Schools  165 

house  or  sixty,  they  are  his  pupils,  not  his  sons.  He  may  take 
the  greatest  interest  in  them  and  devote  himself  completelv  to 
their  welfare.  The  boys  on  their  part  may  after  their  fashion 
be  strongly  attached  to  him,  but  even  if  he  to  some  extent 
looks  upon  them  as  his  children  they  have  for  him  none  of 
that  tender  feeling  which  attaches  itself  to  their  parents  and 
home. 

"  M.  Demogeot  in  his  Report  on  English  Schools  takes  our 
masters'  houses  as  the  right  contrasted  with  the  wrong  in  the 
French  internats.  No  doubt  our  masters'  houses  are  vastly 
superior,  but  they  are  not,  as  M.  Demogeot  believes  them,  a 
substitute  for  home.  M.  Demogeot  draws  a  pretty  picture  of 
the  master's  wife  sitting  at  table  with  the  boys,  acting  as  a 
mother  towards  them.  M.  Demogeot  is  a  foreigner  and  may 
be  pardoned  for  making  mistakes.  Indeed,  it  requires  a  good 
deal  of  experience  to  understand  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
English  schoolboy.  He  is  a  totally  different  animal  to  the  boy 
at  home.  The  boy  at  home  belongs  to  the  same  world  as  his 
parents.  Their  acquaintances,  their  interests,  their  amusements, 
are  his.  He  is  mostly  extremely  talkative  —  wants  to  know 
everything  and  to  conceal  nothing.  But  the  schoolboy  has  a 
world  of  his  own,  in  which  the  schoolmaster  has  as  much  share 
as  the  coastguard  officer  in  the  world  of  the  smuggler,  or,  in 
happier  cases,  as  the  drill  sergeant  has  in  the  world  of  the 
recruit.  At  home  he  shares  in  the  interests  of  his  parents  ;  at 
school  he  has  his  own,  and  into  these  he  knows  that  the  master 
could  not  enter  even  if  he  would.  And  the  boy  having  a  world 
of  his  own  does  not  care  about  that  of  the  master.  Even  if 
only  three  or  four  boys  live  with  the  master,  they  never  form 
part  of  \\\%  family.  I  believe  it  is  the  universal  experience  that 
instead  of  chattering  away  as  they  would  by  themselves  or  at 
home,  they  sit  mute  at  the  master's  table,  answer  questions  put 
to  them  as  briefly  as  possible,  and  communicate  with  one 
another  by  significant  glances  and  kicks  under  the  table.  The 
master's  wife,  if  she  shews  the  least  interest  in  them,  is  the 


1 66  R.  H.  Quick 

object  of  their  special  aversion.  From  some  inysterious  cause 
they  always  resent  her  interfering  with  them  in  any  way.  I 
lately  heard  of  a  case  in  which  the  boys  considered  it  a 
grievance  that  the  master's  wife  (a  very  old  lady)  came  into 
their  bedrooms  when  they  were  going  to  bed.  This  complaint 
was  not  from  outraged  modesty,  for  boys  do  not  shew  any 
gene  in  the  presence  of  the  matron  or  the  servants.  If  the 
schools  are  to  be  divided  into  two  classes  instead  of  three,  we 
cannot  put  in  one  category  the  masters'  houses  —  however  small 
—  and  the  day  schools,  but  we  must  draw  a  broad  distinction 
between  the  schools  which  take  boys  from  the  charge  of  their 
parents  and  those  which  do  not. 

"  Now  that  our  system  of  secondary  education  is  under 
revision  it  is  very  important  that  we  should  consider  what 
distinguished  men  have  to  say  about  its  main  problems  both  in 
this  country  and  on  the  Continent.  The  two  great  questions 
which  are  discussed  by  M.  Boissier  in  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Monties  (15/8/69)  are  the  comparative  merits  of  day  schools 
and  boarding  schools  and  the  curriculum.  I  purpose  examining 
the  first  of  these,  on  which  M.  Renan  has  pubhshed  his  views 
in  an  address  (Z(Z  part  de  la  Famille  et  de  V Etat  dans  V Educa- 
tion, par  Ernest  Renan,  Levy  1869).  Many  of  the  objections 
urged  against  the  vie  de  caserne  in  French  internats  do  not 
apply  to  English  boarding  schools,  but  M.  Renan  has  asserted 
some  broad  principles  which  tell  against  our  system  as  much  as 
against  the  French ;  and  the  new  schools  which  are  springing 
up  among  us  for  the  middle  class  have  more  in  common  with 
the  French  internats  than  we  see  in  our  older  foundations. 

"To  consider  public  schools  only,  they  may  be  divided  into 
three  classes  :  ist,  those  which  are  wholly  or  mainly  day  schools, 
2nd,  those  where  the  boys  live  in  private  establishments  kept 
by  the  masters,  3rd,  those  in  which  the  boys  hve  in  the  school 
buildings  and  are  maintained  out  of  the  common  funds  of  the 
school,  whether  those  funds  are  derived  from  endowments  or 
from  the  payments  of  the  parents  (the  hostel  system).    Schools 


Boarding  Schools  167 

of  this  third  class  are  now  increasing  and  they  seem  in  some 
respects  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  middle  classes.  There  is 
a  strong  opinion  in  this  country  in  favour  of  boarding  schools. 
Hitherto  they  have  been  far  more  expensive  than  day  schools 
and  have  therefore  a  liigher  social  rank  —  an  advantage  which 
has  an  enormous  weight  with  the  middle  classes.  They  also 
have  a  stronghold  in  the  indolence  of  parents.  Boys  at  home 
require  a  certain  amount  of  looking  after  and  the  hard-worked 
father  is  glad  to  escape  from  the  trouble  and  responsibility 
which  this  involves.  He  may  too  conscientiously  believe  that 
those  who  have  experience  in  education  will  deal  more  judi- 
ciously with  his  boys  than  he  could  himself.  Then  again  he 
has  a  large  choice  of  boarding  schools  and  his  boys  may  have 
the  benefit  of  country  or  sea  air  while  he  is  obliged  to  live  in 
a  large  town. 

"  These  considerations  have  turned  the  scale  in  favour  of  a 
boarding  school.  The  middle-class  parent  has  now  to  count 
the  cost  and  he  cannot  afford  the  old  boarding  school  ])rices 
whether  of  the  great  public  schools  or  the  respectable  private 
schools.  Here  the  new  County  schools  come  in  to  supply  his 
need.  By  lodging  and  boarding  a  large  number  of  boys  to- 
gether in  a  building  provided  by  subscription,  these  schools 
can  give  better  teaching  and  better  diet  for  ^^30  a  year  than  a 
private  schoolmaster  could  afford  to  give  a  smaller  number  of 
boys  for  ^\o.  So  the  tide  seems  setting  in  favour  of  schools 
which  introduce  to  some  extent  the  barrack  life  of  the  French 
internals.  After  all,  the  resemblance  between  the  two  is  more 
superficial  than  real.  If  we  seek  the  most  injurious  features  of 
the  French  lyc^es,  the  constant  restraint,  the  unremitted  sur- 
veillance of  the  usher,  we  must  look  for  it,  not  in  our  public 
schools  of  any  kind,  but  in  our  ordinary  establishments  for 
young  gentlemen.  Some  of  our  County  schools  are  mastered 
by  graduates  of  our  Universities,  and  there  is  a  strong  disposi- 
tion to  adopt,  as  far  as  economy  will  permit,  the  manners  and 
customs  of  our  old  public  schools.      If  then  our  secondary 


1 68  R.  H.   Quick 

education  for  the  middle  classes  is  to  be  given  in  boarding 
schools,  can  we  improve  on  those  which  in  the  last  few  years 
have  been  established  at  Hurstpierpoint  and  in  several  other 
counties  ?  Mr  S.  Hawtrey  of  Eton  has  strongly  advocated  the 
extension  of  the  system  of  masters'  houses  to  the  middle  class 
schools.  He  admits  of  course  that  this  system  could  not  be  so 
cheaply  carried  out  as  the  other,  but  he  thinks  that  its  superior 
advantages  more  than  compensate  for  the  additional  outlay. 
The  master-house  system  is  certainly  free  from  a  defect  which 
will  probably  shew  itself  more  and  more  in  the  County  plan. 
This  plan  hardly  admits  of  any  master  except  the  headmaster 
being  married.  There  are  indeed  cases  of  assistant  masters 
marrying  and  living  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  school,  but 
this  arrangement  is  not  very  advantageous  to  either  party.  The 
married  man  costs  the  school  more  than  the  bachelor  living  in 
the  building,  and  does  less  work  in  return.  On  the  other  hand 
the  sum  which  the  school  allows  him  instead  of  board  and 
lodging  is  not  enough  to  defray  his  own  expenses,  and  his 
income  is  quite  inadequate  to  maintain  a  wife  and  family.  The 
consequence  is  that  these  schools  are  mastered  by  able  young 
men  who  leave  almost  before  they  know  how  to  teach,  or  by 
men  the  very  reverse  of  able  who  stay  on  because  they  can 
hope  for  nothing  better.  In  this  respect  the  plan  of  masters' 
houses  is  very  superior,  but  it  would  cost  at  least  ;^io  a  boy 
more.  In  other  words  the  worse  system  is  within  the  reach  of 
many  more  parents  than  the  better. 

"  There  is  too  a  notion,  whether  well  or  ill  grounded,  that 
boarding  schools  supply  a  useful  hardening  element  in  educa- 
tion. Affection  seems  to  many  people  irreconcilable  with 
proper  discipline,  and  the  father  puts  his  boy  away  from  him 
into  the  hands  of  the  master,  as  we  leave  him  with  the  dentist 
or  the  surgeon,  not  only  because  the  operator  is  more  skilful 
than  he,  but  also  because  he  believes  him  to  be  more  judiciously 
stern.  And  the  moral  atmosphere  of  the  boarding  school  is 
unquestionably  colde7-  (so  to  speak)  than  that  of  home,  and  a 


Headmaster  s  power  of  dismissal         1 69 

boy's  character  is  thought  to  be  braced  up  by  it.  When  the  boy 
grows  up  he  will  have  to  fight  his  way  in  a  somewhat  unfeeling 
world,  and  he  gets  in  training  for  this  by  literally  fighting  his 
way  in  a  petty  world  which  is  at  least  as  unsympathetic  as  the 
Stock  Exchange. 

"  Summing  up  the  real  and  supposed  advantages  of  the 
boarding  school,  I  must  not  omit  what  seems  to  me  the 
greatest  advantage  of  all,  though  it  is  not  much  thought  of  by 
parents.  In  a  boarding  school  the  hours  of  work  are  better 
distributed  than  they  can  be  in  a  day  school  and  common  work 
alternates  with  common  play.  The  benefit  derived  from  hearty 
games  is  immense,  and  in.  point  of  fact  the  games  are  never 
hearty  when  the  boys  are  drawn  away  by  the  interests  of 
home." 

Temtre  of  Assistant  Masters 

"  A  Letter  to  the  Spectator.     May  11,  '72. 

"  It  has  hitherto  been  supposed  that  assistant  masters  have 
sufificient  security  in  the  good  feeling  of  the  headmaster  and 
the  force  of  public  opinion.  We  know  now  the  value  of  this 
security.  The  headmaster  may,  if  he  is  a  selfish  man,  calmly 
and  deliberately,  or  if  he  is  an  impulsive  man,  in  a  freak  of  ill- 
temper,  work  the  ruin  of  any  of  his  subordinates.  He  may  take 
from  them  their  employment  and  their  income,  and  turn  them 
adrift  to  begin  the  world  again.  And  public  opinion  will  take 
the  matter  very  quietly.  The  pubHc  cannot  possibly  judge  of 
the  merits  of  the  particular  case,  and  will  most  likely  content 
itself  with  a  vague  notion  that  such  arbitrary  powers  in  the 
headmaster  are  sufficient  to  secure  subordination  and  discipline 
among  the  assistant  masters.  And  yet  no  such  powers  are 
conferred  on  colonels  of  regiments  or  captains  of  men-of-war, 
whose  subordinates  nevertheless  do  not  often  prove  refractory. 

"  Surely  there  should  be  a  right  of  appeal,  not  only  in  the 
interests  of  the  assistant  masters,  but  of  the  country  at  large. 

"  My  letter  to  Spectator  (11/5/72)  considers  the  question 


lyo 


R.  If.  Oiiick 


from  (Hie  side  only.  My  strong  ])oint  is  that  it  is  unfair  on  a 
body  of  men  to  make  their  h\  elihood  dependent  on  the  will  of 
an  individual,  and  this  unfairness  has  the  bad  result  of  making 
good  men  hesitate  about  entering  the  profession.  At  present, 
however,  instances  of  unjust  dismissal  have  been  so  rare  that 
men  are  ready  enough  to  run  the  risk.  All  that  can  be  said  is 
that  the  despotic  power  of  the  headmaster  is  an  anomaly,  and 
that  it  leads  to  individual  cases  of  great  hardship. 

"  iiutler  yesterday  in  a  ride  we  had  put  the  other  side.  If 
there  were  any  appeal  from  the  headmaster,  the  headmaster's 
feeling  of  responsibility  would  be  weakened,  and  this  would  be 
very  bad  for  the  school.  The  headmaster  would  quiet  his 
conscience  in  allowing  men  to  go  on  in  the  school  whom  he 
knew  to  be  more  harm  than  good.  Besides  a  headmaster 
would  hardly  be  able  to  hold  his  own  when  he  had  a  large  and 
powerful  staff  under  him,  unless  he  and  they  knew  that  in  case 
of  a  quarrel  he  could  knock  down  any  one  of  them.  Of  course 
one  sees  many  advantages  in  a  dictatorship  when  the  dictator 
is  almost  sure  to  be  a  good  man  and  must  in  the  main  use  his 
power  for  the  public  service.  Oddly  enough  the  British  public, 
which  will  not  hear  of  a  despotism  anywhere  else,  is  strongly  in 
favour  of  it  in  schools. 

"  What  makes  the  question  difficult  is  the  very  different 
sorts  of  schools  concerned.  In  the  leading  schools  like  Harrow 
there  is  not  much  danger  of  getting  lazy  or  quite  incompetent 
men,  but  then  the  headmaster  wants  power  in  dealing  with 
men  who  in  attainments  are  his  equals.  In  schools  where  the 
assistant  masters  are  poll  men  the  power  of  dismissal  must 
be  exercised  much  more  freely.  Ci:  the  other  hand  if  the 
assistant  masters  are  treated  too  much  as  the  servants  of  the 
headmaster,  tlieir  feeling  of  responsibility  is  weakened  and  they 
content  themselves  with  doing  what  the  head  requires  of  them. 

"  One  good  point  in  the  despotism  of  the  headmaster  is  that, 
while  it  moderates  the  opposition  of  assistants,  it  also  enables 
him  to  tolerate  an  amount  of  opposition  and  even  insult  that 


Headmasters  power  of  dismissal         lyi 

he  would  not  put  up  with  if  the  offender  had  an  independent 
position  in  the  school.  A  really  high-ininded  headmaster  is 
opposed  by  an  assistant  who  loses  his  temper  and  is  violent  in 
his  language.  If  the  assistant  had  the  right  of  appeal,  the  head- 
master would  say,  '  If  I  tolerate  this  I  prefer  my  berth  to  my 
character.  I  must  dismiss  X.  and  let  the  Governors  decide 
between  us.  Not  to  do  so  would  be  shewing  the  white  feather 
and  my  power  in  the  school  would  be  at  an  end.'  F>ut  when 
the  headmaster  knows  that  by  writing  a  note  he  could  ruin  the 
offender's  career,  toleration  becomes  not  cowardice  but  magna- 
nimity. And  his  colleagues  knowing  his  power  respect  him  for 
not  exercising  it,  and  do  not  presume  because  he  is  forbearing. 
Of  course  when  the  headmaster  is  a  tyrant  at  heart  his  power 
prevents  free  discussion,  and  in  such  cases,  to  some  extent 
indeed  in  all,  it  weakens  the  consciousness  of  responsibility  in 
the  assistant  masters  as  much  as  strengthens  it  in  the  head." 

Dismissal  flf  Assistant  Masters  at  Reading  School 

"  W.  A.  Cox,  a  fellow  of  St  John's,  Cambridge,  has  sent  me 
a  correspondence  about  the  dismissal  of  himself  and  another 
Fellow  of  St  John's  from  Reading  Grammar  School  by  Dr 
Stokoe.  It  seems  the  late  Reading  Grammar  School  Act 
places  the  power  of  dismissal  in  the  hands  of  the  Trustees  and 
to  the  Trustees  Cox  and  Stevens  appeal.  The  Clerk  to  the 
Trustees  then  writes  them  word  that  the  terms  and  spirit  of  the 
agreement  between  the  Trustees  and  the  headmaster  will 
prevent  their  interfering  in  the  matter  of  assistant  masters,  and 
the  Clerk,  no  doubt  speaking  the  opinion  of  the  ordinary 
Britisher,  says  that  such  an  arrangement  is  essential  to  the 
proper  discipline  and  harmonious  working  in  the  school,  as  (he 
adds)  '  I  think  must  be  self-evident  to  anyone  who  reflects 
dispassionately  upon  the  subject.'  Here  is  another  instance 
that  the  ill-informed  man  is  always  the  Rechthaber.  The  Clerk 
does  not  remember  that    the  Act  was  presumably  drawn  by 


172  R.  H.  Quick 

people  who  had  reflected  dispassionately  on  the  subject.  He 
probably  diti  not  know  that  the  Ciermans  are  quite  capable  of 
reflection  and  that  they  have  deliberately  arrived  at  an  opposite 
conclusion.  All  the  ordinary  man  can  see  is  that  discipline 
must  be  maintained.  The  instructive  feature  of  this  case  is 
that  the  Trustees,  even  if  they  had  to  decide  disputes  between 
the  head  and  his  assistants,  would  almost  always  shirk  responsi- 
bility and  decide  on  supporting  their  headmaster  through  thick 
and  thin. 

"  Dr  Butler  says  that  if  there  were  any  right  of  appeal  the 
headmaster  would  never  be  able  to  get  rid  of  an  assistant 
too  old  for  his  work.  Oscar  Browning  says  that,  as  it  is, 
old  men  are  never  removed,  because  the  headmaster  does 
not  like  the  invidious  office  of  removing  them,  but  if  he 
could  recommend  the  Trustees  to  dismiss  a  man  he  would. 
I  take  it  the  power  of  the  headmaster  would  not  actually 
be  diff'erent  if  there  were  an  appeal,  but  he  would  not  be 
likely  so  readily  to  use  his  power.  The  gain  of  having  an 
appeal  would  be  great,  not  that  the  assistant  masters  would 
really  be  independent  of  the  headmaster,  but  because  they 
would  then  feel  themselves  part  and  parcel  of  the .  school 
and  not  the  servants  of  the  headmaster.  Directly  you  make 
the  superior  autocratic  you  lower  and  deteriorate  the  sub- 
ordinates. The  subordinate  gets  into  the  habit  of  doing 
just  what  his  chief  requires  and  nothing  more.  An  immense 
deal  of  harm  has  been  done  by  the  despotism  of  some  in- 
cumbents and  the  consequent  deterioration  of  curates.  The 
incumbent  very  often  treats  the  curate  as  his  servant.  I  have 
heard  one  incumbent  ask  another  to  *  send  his  curate '  to  take 
a  service,  just  as  he  might  have  asked  him  to  send  his  footman 
on  an  errand.  Curates  thus  treated  become  a  migratory  race 
and  take  little  interest  in  their  work.  They  feel  that  they  have 
no  stake  or  status  in  the  parish.  The  churchwardens  have 
more  power  than  they." 


Headmasters  poivcr  of  dismissal         173 


Headmasters  and  Assistants.     Temire  of  Office 

"  The  great  Felsted  controversy  is  now  raging,  and  also  the 
Oscar  Browning  dismissal  is  being  discussed  in  the  papers, 
though  the  Times  does  all  it  can  to  suppress  the  discussion. 

"  We  Englishmen  are  like  children  ;  we  care  for  no  abstract 
questions  except  when  they  are  illustrated  by  particular  cases. 
Thus  in  legislating  we  either  think  only  of  particular  cases 
and  so  legislate  all  on  one  side,  or  we  care  so  little  about 
the  matter  that  we  leave  our  legislation  in  the  hands  of  two 
or  three  people  who  put  their  own  crotchets  into  the  form  of 
laws.  When  Parliament  passed  the  Public  Schools  Act  and 
put  headmasters  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  Governing 
Body  and  the  assistant  masters  at  the  mercy  of  the  head- 
master, neither  the  heads  nor  the  assistants  troubled  them- 
selves much  about  the  matter.  Either  they  did  not  think 
about  it  or  they  supposed  the  change  would  not  lead  to 
much  result.  No  doubt  it  won't  lead  to  much  result  in  most 
cases,  but  it  will  in  some.  Occasionally  you  will  find  a 
Governing'  Body  behaving  in  a  high-handed  way  to  a  head- 
master, occasionally  you  will  hear  of  a  headmaster  spiting  an 
assistant  and  dismissing  him  on  wholly  insufficient  grounds. 
But  nobody  said  this  at  the  time,  and  the  Act  was  passed. 
Then  come  the  inevitable  instances,  and  forthwith  not  the  pro- 
fession only,  but  the  general  public  becomes  excited,  though 
the  public  seems  rather  ashamed  for  interesting  itself  in  any- 
thing so  mean  as  school  matters.  But  the  general  question 
of  the  amount  of  power  to  be  given  to  Governing  Bodies  and 
to  the  headmaster  is  being  settled  every  week  by  some  new 
scheme  of  the  Commissioners.  And  what  line  do  they  take? 
Instead  of  settling  on  the  best  course,  they  are  of  '  a  mixed 
opinion'  (to  use  the  grocer's  phrase),  and  they  first  give  the 
assistant  masters  no  appeal,  next  declare  they  will  always  give 
an  appeal,  and  finally  give  an  appeal  occasionally.     In  some 


174  ^'  ^-  Q^^-ick 

cases,  too,  they  make  the  assistant  masters  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  the  headmaster  and  vest  all  appointments  and 
powers  of  dismissal  in  the  Governing  Body.  Then  again, 
they  give  the  Governing  Body  the  very  dangerous  power  of 
settling  in  what  proportions  various  subjects  are  to  be  taught 
in  the  school  —  this,  too,  when  the  Governing  Body  is  jjartly 
elected  by  the  ratepayers  every  five  years,  so  that  the  studies 
of  the  school  may  be  revolutionised  twice  in  every  decade. 
Yet  while  all  this  absurdity  is  becoming  law,  not  a  creature 
seems  to  care  a  button  about  it  !  The  only  thing  we  are 
really  concerned  to  know  is  why  the  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
instead  of  replying  to  Mr  Grignon's  letter,  handed  over  the 
correspondence  to  Messrs  Day  and  Hassard  !  " 

Debate  on  Assistant  Masters  in  House  of  Commons 

"Last  night  (Ap.  3,  1876)  K.  Huguessen  brought  on  a 
debate  in  the  House  about  Assistant  Masters.  Reading  the 
papers  about  matters  on  which  one  is  well  informed  fills  one 
with  profound  melancholy.  Nobody  seems  to  speak  the  truth 
or  even  to  wish  to  speak  the  truth.  '  Truth  for  its  own  sake  ' 
is  at  a  great  discount ;  everything,  as  Remusst  says,  has  to  be 
acted  scenically  for  the  public,  and  the  actors  tiy  to  make  their 
parts  as  telling  as  possible  without  caring  whether  they  really 
represent  the  original  or  not.  It  is  an  understood  thing  that 
the  assistant  masters  must  be  '  kept  iji  their  proper  places,' 
and  the  autocracy  of  the  headma^,ter  maintained.  So  the 
talkers  in  Parliament  and  the  leader-writers  in  papers  just 
say  what  will  chime  in  with  this  view,  without  a  thought  of 
the  facts  of  the  case.  And,  oddly  enough,  these  idle  talkers 
assume  that  they  thoroughly  understand  this  most  difficult 
question  and  chatter  about  it  with  all  possible  confidence. 
There  seems  little  genuine  information,  and  very  little  desire 
for  any." 


Defects  of  Public  School  Education      175 


Defects  of  Public  School  Ediuation 

"June  13,  '72.  Mr  Joseph  Payne  has  made  a  vigorous 
onslaught  on  the  state  of  education  in  England  in  the  Sessional 
Proceedings  of  the  National  Association  for  the  Promoting  of 
Social  Science,  Vol.  v.  No.  20.  The  lecture  is  too  much  of  a 
Strafpredigt,  but  he  quotes  authorities  for  his  assertions.  What 
he  would  have  is  a  more  systematic  training  of  teachers  and 
a  slop  put  to  didactic  teaching.  The  teacher  is  to  be  the  guide 
merely.  This  theory  is  undoubtedly  the  right  one,  but  there 
are  great  difficulties  in  working  it  in  a  school,  and  most  school 
teachers  give  it  up  altogether.  If  intelligent  teaching  is  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  England,  it  ought  to  be  in  schools  like 
Harrow,  where  we  have  for  masters  the  very  pick  of  the 
Universities.  But,  whatever  may  be  the  cause,  our  men  here 
do  not  take  much  interest  in  the  theory  of  their  profession, 
and  the  results  of  their  teaching  as  tested  by  the  average  boy 
when  he  goes  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge  do  not  seem  satisfactory. 
I  attribute  this  in  a  great  measure  to  our  men  being  over- 
worked. If  a  man  has  a  form  of  35  boys,  a  pupil-room  of  35 
other  boys,  and  the  management  of  a  boarding  house  besides, 
it  is  quite  impossible  that  he  can  have  leisure  to  think  what 
he  is  doing.  So  long  as  he  gets  through  his  work  anyhow  he 
is  contented.  As  for  improvements  in  education,  you  might 
as  well  talk  to  him  of  improvements  in  locomotives  when  he 
is  in  a  hurry  to  catch  a  train.  If  he  stayed  to  hsten  to  you 
he  might  see  that  engines  are  capable  of  improvements,  but 
he  would  prefer  that  an  ordinary  engine  should  take  him  where 
he  wants  to  go. 

"  Another  great  mischief  is  that  men  are  distracted  by 
having  a  lot  of  pupils  in  different  parts  of  the  school.  Another 
is  that  every  man  teaches  as  he  likes  without  troubling  himself 
about  the  methods  of  the  man  below  him  or  above  him,  and 
as  removes  are  rapid,  a  boy  has  the  subject,  to  some  extent, 


176  R.  //.   Quick 

and  still  more  the  manner  of  the  instruction  given  him  changed 
three  times  a  year. 

"Of  these  evils  the  overworking  of 'the  masters  is  the 
greatest.  J.  A.  C.  and  E.  E.  B.,  both  rapid  workers,  spend 
sixty  hours  on  their  work  every  six  week-days.  I  beheve 
no  man  can  keep  his  freshness  through  anything  like  that 
amount  of  school-work." 


Superannuation  of  Masters 

"March  8,  '74.  The  Rugby  Governors  have,  I  believe, 
passed  a  rule  of  what  seems  early  superannuation.  Vaughan 
thought  a  headmaster  should  not  remain  at  his  post  more  than 
fifteen  years.  It  is  a  melancholy  conclusion  to  arrive  at  that 
when  a  man  has  acquired  skill  and  experience  and  has  not 
become  in  any  way  enfeebled,  he  nevertheless  serves  his  school 
best  by  leaving  it.  But  every  kind  of  labour  seems  to  harden 
into  a  Hfeless  routine,  and  masters  have  double  functions  :  — 
(i)  to  keep  the  machine  in  working  order  and  to  work  it; 
(2)  (a  much  higher  function)  to  be  a  living  soul  who  cannot 
educate  by  mere  machinery,  however  excellent.  It  is  the 
latter  function  that  is  endangered  by  time.  The  master  loses 
his  freshness  and  becomes  himself  a  bit  of  the  machinery. 
How  glorious  is  the  enthusiasm  one  feels  in  the  early  days 
of  one's  work  !  But  this  enthusiasm  dies  out  and  one  is 
kept  up  to  the  collar,  not  by  zeal,  but  by  habit  or  sense 
of  duty." 

Entrance  Scholarships  in  Public  Schools 

"  Debate  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Aug.  4,  1875.  The 
inquirers  may  have  been  prejudiced,  but  there  can  be  no 
question  but  that  the  inquiry  was  conducted  and  the  report 
drawn  up  in  the  most  perfect  good  faith.  This,  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  is  the  first  attempt  ever  made  to  ascertain 
the   effect  of  competitive   examinations  on  young  boys,  and 


Entrance  Scholarships  177 

their  verdict  is  that  competition,  even  in  this  very  limited 
form,  is  injurious.  But  if  such  competition  as  this  is  doubtful, 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  competition  for  entrance  scholarships 
at  the  principal  schools  throughout  England?  Winchester 
was,  I  believe,  the  first  school  of  any  importance  to  devote 
its  revenues  to  offering  these  large  prizes  to  parents  ;  Eton 
and  Charterhouse  have  followed ;  the  other  great  schools, 
even  those  which  had  no  endowments  which  could  thus  be 
applied,  found  funds,  in  some  cases  out  of  the  masters'  pockets, 
for  entrance  scholarships,  lest  all  the  clever  boys  should  be 
attracted  elsewhere.  What  has  been  the  consequence?  Every 
gentleman  with  small  means  and  a  large  family  is  perplexed 
how  to  get  his  sons  educated.  He  naturally  wishes  the 
cleverer  of  them  to  enter  some  profession  in  which  they  may 
become  distinguished.  But  he  cannot  afford  a  public  school 
education  for  them  in  ordinary  circumstances.  The  only 
chance  for  him  is  to  enter  them  at  twelve  years  old  for  a 
scholarship.  There  are  thus  a  great  many  children  who  have 
to  be  trained  for  a  competition  at  twelve  years  old.  Mr  W. 
Hunt  asserted  that  their  success  must  depend  more  on  their 
tutors  than  themselves,  and  that  only  rich  people's  sons  can 
get  the  best  tuition.  This  is  only  partly  the  fact.  As  far  as 
I  have  been  able  to  observe,  it  is  only  clever  boys  who  gain 
scholarships,  but  then  it  is  not  all  clever  boys,  but  only  those 
who  have  had  the  ablest  tuition.  To  run  boys  for  these 
examinations  has  become  a  regular  profession,  and  the  suc- 
cessful trainer  requires  high  remuneration.  But  we  must  not 
infer  with  Mr  W.  Hunt  that  this  limits  the  scholarships  to 
just  the  class  of  boys  whose  parents  do  not  want  the  income 
of  the  scholarship.  The  needy  professional  man  finds  it  a 
good  investment  to  pay  this  heavy  price  for  training.  A  bar- 
rister with  a  large  family  once  said  to  me,  '  I  pay  Mr  X. 
;^i5o  a  year  for  my  youngest  boy.  Of  course  this  is  much 
more  than  I  can  properly  afford,  but  the  boy  is  sharp  and 
X.  is  a  first-rate  crammer,  so  I  have  little  doubt  that  my  boy 

N 


178  R.  H.   Quick 

will  gain  a  scholarship  after  two  years'  training,  and  I  shall 
more  than  get  my  money  back.' 

"  I  believe  firmly  that  these  competitions  do  harm.  In 
the  first  place  they  lead  to  unhealthy  forcing  of  clever  boys, 
and  secondly  they  limit  the  instruction  given  in  preparatory 
schools.  Whilst  the  honour  list  for  these  schools  is  decided 
by  Latin  and  Greek,  Latin  and  Greek  will  be  the  subjects 
chiefly  attended  to,  and  the  boys  who  have  no  aptitude  for 
them  will  have  to  go  practically  uneducated. 

"  Again,  as  Montaigne  says,  we  must  remember  that  boys 
have  both  bodies  and  minds,  and  that  we  cannot  separate 
them.  But  this  is  just  what  our  present  system  tries  to  do. 
In  days  gone  by  a  Selwyn,  a  Chitty,  and  a  Denman  were 
distinguished  by  a  high  place  both  in  the  class  lists  and  on 
the  river,  but  they  can  have  no  successors.  At  a  very  early 
age  bifiircation  comes  into  play.  The  boy  with  excessively 
developed  brain,  who  needs  plenty  of  outdoor  exercise,  is  put 
to  study  eight,  nine,  or  even  ten  hours  a  day  for  an  entrance 
scholarship.  The  boy  who  has  no  chance  in  this  race  thinks 
of  competitions  of  another  kind,  and  lets  all  his  interest  and 
energies  go  into  athleticism.  And,  as  competitions  of  both 
kinds  get  keener  and  keener,  there  is  an  ever-widening  gulf 
between  the  boys  who  do  well  in  examinations  and  the  boys 
who,  in  school  phrase,  are  'good  at  games.' 

"The  Times  of  3  June,  1879,  has  a  letter  from  Ridding 
about  entrance  scholarshii)s,  from  which  it  would  seem  that 
some  agitation  has  been  got  up  against  these  competitions. 
Ridiling  says,  as  usual,  'What  on  earth  are  we  to  do  with 
our  endowments  if  we  don't  give  them  in  this  way?'  But 
if,  as  we  contend,  these  competitive  examinations  do  a  vast 
amount  of  harm,  it  is  no  answer  to  say,  '  We  are  very  sorry 
but  we  liave  money  tiiat  must  be  given,  antl  we  think  it  does 
less  harm  in  this  way  than  in  any  t)lher  suggested.'  " 

To  J.  K.  at  Haileybury  he  writes  :  — 

"You  iicadmasters,  who  arc  always  fishing  for  clever  boys, 
l)oison  the  water  to  bring  the  llsh  to  the  top." 


Hcadimistcrs  1 79 


Headmasters,  the  two  requisites  in 

"12  Feb.  '80.  I  was  at  Birmingham  lately  and  found  a 
man  working  quietly,  but  I  expect  most  effectively  and  with  the 
most  hearty  sympathy  between  himself  and  his  subordinates. 
The  two  great  requisites  in  a  headuiaster  seem  to  me:  (i) 
energy,  (2)  sympathy  with  his  staff.  The  first  is  dangerous 
without  the  second,  and  the  second  without  the  first  is  not 
enough  to  secure  respect.  A  frightfully  energetic  man  may 
crush  the  life  out  of  his  subordinates.  H.  says  Benson  did 
this  at  Wellington  College,  and  that  they  were  cabined,  cribbed, 
confined  and  were  as  dull  as  ditchwater.  Things  are  very 
different  at  Birmingham.  I  hear  that  at  A —  X.  is  not  at  all 
equal  to  carrying  on  H.'s  work.  The  men  are  totally  different. 
There  is  a  burly  greatness  about  H.  and  not  about  X." 


The  pike  and  small  fry  in  one  pond. 

"  7  May,  '85.  A  boy  has  recently  died  from  injuries 
received  from  older  boys  at  King's  College  School,  London, 
and  the  public  is  very  naturally  and  very  properly  excited 
about  it.  But  the  public  has  no  notion  of  how  difficult  the 
problem  of  boys'  life  out  of  school  is.  In  grown-up  life  we 
find  differences  between  the  educated  and  uneducated,  between 
young  men  and  old,  between  the  virtuous  and  vicious  ;  but  all 
these  differences  are  small  compared  with  the  differences  we 
find  in  boys  at  different  ages.  The  child  of  eight  and  the  lad 
of  sixteen  seem  hardly  to  have  anything  in  common,  and  it  is 
hard  indeed  to  order  a  community  in  which  some  of  the 
members  are  like  the  pike  of  the  pond  and  the  others  are 
the  small  fry,  and  where,  as  in  Bestaloz/.i's  fable,  there  is  a 
change  going  on  of  die  smaller  fry  into  pike." 


i8o  R.  H.  Quick 

Visit  to   Germany 

"  Hamburg.  9  June,  '68.  When  I  was  here  before  there 
was  a  large  Volkschule  under  Scharlach,  which  still  goes  on ; 
but  besides  this  the  town  has  established  a  second  and  erected 
for  it  at  a  cost  of  ^^8,400  (it  would  have  cost  twice  as  much 
to  build  in  England)  a  noble  building  on  the  Promenade,  one 
of  the  best  situations  in  the  town.  The  Director  has  the  two 
upper  floors  for  his  house,  and  his  rooms  are  good  enough  for 
a  prince.  At  present  there  come  daily  to  this  building  2,600 
children,  boys  and  girls  (but  the  sexes  are  taught  separately)  of 
the  very  poorest  in  the  town.  The  payment  is  i^.  a  month  or 
\s.  6d.  for  two  or  more  from  the  same  family,  but  more  than 
half  the  children  are  excused  fees  in  whole  or  part.  The 
teaching  staff  for  this  large  number  is  only  33  men  and  10 
women,  which  give  60  to  every  teacher.  In  the  lowest  classes 
there  are  over  100  pupils  and  several  of  the  middle  classes 
have  80  and  90.  The  Director  himself  gives  only  8  lessons  a 
week,  but  the  amount  of  work  that  must  fall  upon  him  is 
terrible  to  think  of.  When  I  went  in  he  was  writing  a  note  to 
a  parent  dunning  him  for  the  cost  of  a  window  his  son  had 
broken.  Mrs  Todgers  says  that  in  a  boarding  house  the  gravy 
alone  is  enough  to  shorten  the  life  of  a  landlady.  I  should 
think  that  the  windows  alone  would  have  the  same  effect  on  a 
director  of  2,600  children.  Besides  all  this  there  are  most 
elaborate  official  forms  to  be  filled  up. 

"  The  instruction  to  be  given  is  carefully  arranged  from  time 
to  time  for  each  class,  and  every  teacher  keeps  a  record  of 
what  is  done  in  each  subject  each  week.  The  Director  examines 
from  time  to  time  according  to  this  class  book.  At  the  yearly 
examination  before  Easter  each  form  has  a  copy-book  for  every 
subject,  and  every  pupil  copies  a  piece  of  work  into  this  book. 
Some  of  the  writing  in  Prima  was  beautiful.  Ther^  is  a 
librarv  for  the  masters,  to  add  to  which  the  Director  has  a  sum 
of  money  allowed  every  year." 


Masters  in   Gcrmauv  i8i 


Status  of  Masters  in   Germany 

"All  teachers  (except  drawing  and  singing  masters) in  schools 
higher  than  Blirgerschulen  must  be  graduates.  These  masters 
after  their  University  course  pass  an  examination  as  teachers 
and  then  have  a  Probejahr.  During  this  they  give  some  lo 
lessons  a  week  and  are  present  at  other  lessons  given  by 
masters.  When  they  get  a  berth  they  can  only  be  removed  by 
the  Ministerium  and  only  on  account  of  immorality.  If  they 
fall  ill  in  the  first  15  years  they  get  permission  to  go  to  a  Bad, 
and  if  the  doctors  certify  that  they  never  again  will  be  fit  for 
duty  they  may  be  dismissed  without  pension  ;  but  they  are 
generally  allowed  a  pension.  After  15  years'  service  they  are 
entitled  to  a  pension  of  a  fourth  of  their  salaries  and  their 
claim  increases  with  length  of  service.  This,  however,  is  not 
considered  sufficient  and  a  bill  has  been  introduced  to  increase 
the  pensions.  Political  considerations  sometimes  lead  to  a 
teacher's  being  removed.  Some  members  of  the  National- 
verein  were  required  by  the  Government  to  retire  from  the 
Verein,  and  when  they  refused  they  were  removed  from  their 
posts  ;  but  the  Government  had  either  to  pension  them  or  find 
them  other  posts. 

"  A  master  may  be  dismissed  for  repeated  striking  or  caning 
of  boys.  Last  year  (1867)  the  Ministerium  published  an  edict 
that  all  masters  were  to  abstain  from  corporal  punishment  as 
much  as  possible,  and  that  if  any  master  had  to  use  it  he  was 
to  report  the  fact  to  the  Director  of  the  school.  Boxing  the 
boys'  ears  is  however  a  common  practice  according  to  Holzke, 
and  the  masters  don't  trouble  themselves  much  in  such  matters 
about  the  minutes  of  the  Ministerium.  The  master  may  not 
give  lines  to  write,  as  our  practice  is,  but  may  set  lines  to  be 
learnt  by  heart.  Two  or  three  days'  imprisonment  is  a  common 
punishment.  Expulsion  is  sometimes  resorted  to.  H.  says 
everything  depends  on  finding  out  the  few  bad  boys  at  first, 


1 82  R.  H.   Quick 

and  letting  them  see  it  is  not  safe  to  ])lay  tricks.  If  they  go  on 
undiscovered  they  spoil  a  whole  class. 

"  Matthew  Arnold  seems  to  be  quite  wrong  about  the 
absence  of  political  influences  in  school  appointments.  The 
Professor  said  that  under  Bismarck  it  had  not  been  so  bad 
as  before,  but  that  democratic  opinions  always  hindered  a 
man's  advancement.  When  the  town  founded  the  Stadtische 
Gymnasium  they  would  have  liked  to  appoint  as  Director  a 
man  who  happened  to  hold  democratic  opinions,  but  they 
knew  the  Government  would  not  confirm  the  appointment  if 
they  made  it.  Holzke  allowed  that  schools  in  Germany  would 
not  have  attained  their  present  development  without  Govern- 
ment control,  but  thought  that  State  control  should  now,  or  at 
least  soon,  be  withdrawn.  There  is  far  too  much  State  inter- 
ference. 

"  M.  Arnold  must  have  shut  his  eyes  and  ears  to  everything 
that  went  against  his  governmental  theories.  He  is  specially 
absurd  about  the  absence  of  political  influence  on  appointments. 
Pubhc  opinion,  he  says,  would  not  endure  it.  The  fact  is  you 
can't  have  a  paternal  Government  controlled  by  the  opinion  of 
the  children.  It  may  be  a  good  thing  to  have  a  Government 
so  strong  that  a  man  like  Bismarck  may  differ  from  the  nation, 
carry  out  his  plans  with  a  high  hand,  and  in  the  end  convince 
the  nation  he  was  right.  It  may  be  a  good  thing  to  have  a 
public  opinion  so  strong  that  a  man  of  Lord  Westbury's 
ability  and  cynicism  must  resign  if  convicted  of  making 
unworthy  appointments.  But  we  cannot  have  the  two  good 
things  in  the  same  country.  Count  Bismarck  and  his  royal 
supporter  would  have  caused  a  revolution  in  England.  Lord 
Westbury  would  not  have  been  attacked  by  a  single  newspaper 
in  Prussia.  The  Prussians  cannot  take  care  of  themselves,  so 
the  Government  takes  care  of  them  with  a  vengeance,  and  if 
the  Government  occasionally  treats  its  charge  in  the  rough  and 
ready  manner  of  Betsy  Prig,  its  charge  must  make  the  best 
of  it." 


Re  a  I-  Sell  ulen  183 


Essays  in  Real-Schulen 

"  Herr  Geist  was  preparing  this  class  (the  Upper  Second) 
to  write  an  essay.  They  have  to  do  one  of  these  essays  every 
three  weeks,  and  besides  this  the  teacher  goes  through  some 
suitable  subject  —  such  as  '  The  influence  of  the  sea  upon  the 
people  who  live  by  it '  —  and  then  makes  boys  speechify  with 
the  matter  he  has  given  them.  These  two  exercises  Herr  G. 
said  were  valuable,  because  boys  generally  are  gedankeulos  and 
they  give  a  master  tlie  opportunity  vieles  eiupumpen.  This 
pumping  in  is  just  the  weak  point  of  German  education,  as  far 
as  I  can  see.  The  German  masters  finding  boys  gedankeulos 
behave  like  children  who  when  a  piece  of  ground  is  given  them 
for  a  garden  stick  in  it  a  lot  of  flowers  they  have  plucked  else- 
where. In  this  essay  too  difficult  subjects  seem  chosen,  and 
the  boys  are  told  too  much.  To-day's  essay  was  on  the  lines 
in  Wallenstein  "  Schnell  fertig  ist  der  Jiingling  mit  dem  Wort 
&c."  The  different  causes  of  a  young  man's  mistakes  were 
gone  into,  the  value  of  his  siitliche  Meinung  &c.  The  difficult 
line  about  things  judging  themselves  was  explained  by  reference 
to  the  objective  and  subjective.  The  boys  showed  a  fair 
amount  of  intelhgence  in  what  they  said,  but  I  think  the 
teacher  did  a  great  deal  too  much  for  them." 


A  lesson  at  the  Paedagogic  Seminar  at  Halle 

"  Once  a  week  a  student  has  to  read  an  essay  which  he  has 
prepared  on  some  paedagogic  subject  before  the  other  students 
and  Cramer.  To-day  the  subject  was  Trotzendorf.  The  essay 
was  not  read  by  the  Verfasser  but  by  another  student,  who, 
when  he  had  finished  reading  proceeded  to  criticise  various 
points  in  it.  The  author  gave  explanations  and  defended  his 
views.  Cramer  acted  as  arbitrator  and  umpire.  No  other 
pupils  spoke.     The   essay  took  nearly  an  hour  to  read,   the 


1 84  R.  H.  Quick 

discussion  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  and  Cramer's 
summing  up  a  quarter.  As  the  subject  was  historical,  one 
could  not  have  expected  an  interesting  discussion,  but  we  had 
one  nevertheless.  The  question  was  why  Trotzendorf  used 
boys  as  teachers.  Cramer  pointed  out  that  this  arose  from  the 
necessity  of  the  case.  Trotzendorf  could  not  get  teachers,  but 
he  shewed  his  greatness  in  making  the  most  of  the  forces  he 
had.  At  the  same  time,  said  Cramer,  to  be  responsible  over 
others  has  in  itself  great  educative  value ;  and  he  proceeded  to 
quote  Tom  Brown,  a  book  which  he  had  lately  recommended 
to  his  class.  Anent  Trotzendorf's  organisation  of  consuls, 
praetors,  &c.,  and  a  court  of  schoolboys  before  whom  minor 
offences  were  tried,  Cramer  said  that  Trotzendorf  had  several 
objects  in  view.  First  it  was  a  capital  means  of  cultivating 
rhetoric  and  making  Latin  a  living  speech  to  the  boys.  He 
who  made  a  good  Latin  speech  in  his  defence  got  off  with  a 
lighter  punishment.  Next  his  organisation  proceeded  from 
admiration  of  the  Roman  life  and  gave  a  charm  to  the  study  of 
it.  And  then  again  Cramer  dwelt  on  the  value  of  the  opinion 
of  boys  about  the  offences  of  boys.  The  master  knows  the 
circumstances  perhaps,  but  only  the  boys  understand  the 
motives.  He  even  praised  the  plan  of  allowing  the  boys  to 
decide  which  should  receive  a  reward.  All  punishments,  he 
allowed,  must  be  in  a  measure  fixed,  or  the  idea  of  injustice 
will  soon  arise ;  but  there  must  be  a  certain  adaptability 
reserved.  He  pointed  out  that  Trotzendorf,  though  a  disciple 
of  Melanchthon,  from  whom  he  named  his  school  Schola 
Philippica,  was  not,  like  Sturm,  a  thorough  humanist.  He  was 
too  much  possessed  and  carried  away  by  the  ideas  of  the 
Reformation  to  be  a  thorough-going  humanist." 

Eton 

"  In  William  Ellis's  'Aim  of  Education,'  a  pamphlet  which 
represents    the    straiter  sect  of  Utilitarians,   I    came    on    the 


Eton  185 

fulluwiiig  passage,  with  which  I  agree: — 'Those  schools  for 
the  children  of  the  poor  are  the  best  which  are  most  successful 
in  fitting  them  and  in  preparing  them  to  become  fit  to  preserve 
themselves  from  destitution.  Those  schools  for  the  children  of 
the  richer  classes  are  the  best  which  are  most  successful  in 
fitting  them  and  in  preparing  them  to  become  fit  to  preserve 
themselves  in  the  expenditure  of  the  wealth  which  they  will 
have  no  occasion  to  earn,  from  frivolity,  profligacy,  and  in- 
difference to  the  sufferings  and  helplessness  of  others.'  Would 
Eton  bear  such  a  test  as  this?  I  fear  not.  I  can  fancy  a 
radical  like  P.  raging  when  he  thinks  of  Eton.  I  am  a  con- 
servative at  heart  and  Eton  has  a  fascination  for  me.  I  was 
at  chapel  there  yesterday  (23  Nov.  '68),  and  found  mucli  food 
for  meditation  not  altogether  tending"  to  raise  my  spirits.  Few 
boys  joined  in  the  hymn  which  was  to  the  Saviour.  Their 
silence  to  me  was  significant.  I  could  have  fancied  them 
shouting  lustily  a  paean  to  '  Mars,  Bacchus,  Apollo,'  or  Venus, 
but  the  Peasant  whose  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world  was 
hardly  to  them  an  ideal  to  worship.  In  the  lesson  for  the  day 
were  the  words,  '  Because  I  have  chosen  you  out  of  the  world 
therefore  the  world  hateth  you,'  and  I  thought  that  perhaps 
spiritual  Christianity  never  could  become  national.  Ordinary 
Protestant  religion  at  all  events  offers  salvation  to  the  individual 
only  on  condition  of  his  believing  in  the  perdition  of  the 
great  mass  of  his  associates.  The  Church  of  Rome,  and  in  our 
Church  Maurice  and  his  school,  have  represented  Christianity 
as  national ;  and  Maurice  at  all  events  would  sympathise  with 
the  chieftain  who  refused  St  Augustine's  baptism  rather  than 
separate  himself  from  his  lost  kindred. 

"  But  to  revert  to  Eton,  I  wonder  what  creed  the  young 
'  barbarians '  have.  Boys  are  more  thoughtful  than  their 
elders  might  suppose,  and  if  they  cannot  make  the  ideal 
that  they  worship  as  Etonians  harmonise  with  the  ideal  that 
they  receive  as  Christians,  the  latter  is  likely  to  go  to  the 
wall," 


1 86  R.  H.  Quick 


French  Lycees 

"  The  lyceens  have  to  work  very  hard,  chiefly  with  a  view  to 
examination  for  baccalau7-eat-es-lettres  or  es-sciences  or  both, 
which  they  take  on  an  average  at  i8.  P.  had  lost  six  months 
from  breaking  his  arm,  so  he  was  obhged  to  read  up  his 
philosophy  with  a  coach  while  he  was  in  Rhetoric,  and  he 
said  that  he  worked  for  a  whole  year  from  6  in  the  morning 
till  lo  at  night  and  on  Sundays  till  3  p.m.  He  hardly  opened 
a  book  for  two  years  after  he  passed,  and  he  thinks  the  over- 
work did  him  a  great  deal  of  harm. 

"  After  all,  studying  for  marks  is  a  different  thing  altogether 
from  studying  for  knowledge.  The  two  may  perhaps  be  com- 
bined, but  they  seem  generally  antagonistic.  Unfortunately 
the  majority  will  work  only  under  the  stimulus  of  the  coming  ex- 
amination. I  confess  it  seems  to  me  doubtful  whether  the  intel- 
lectual level  is  really  raised  by  getting  a  great  amount  of  work 
out  of  youths  before  the  age  of  18.  They  have  no  time  for 
thought  and  if  they  had,  the  necessity  of  acquiring  what  is 
telling  in  examinations  would  kill  it.  Suppose  cricket  were 
banished  from  our  public  schools,  and  school  work  were  no 
longer  the  Traoepyov,  would  the  majority  of  our  pubhc  school 
men  be  more  intelligent  than  they  are  at  present?  No  doubt 
we  go  to  great  lengths  in  leaving  the  mind  fallow,  but  the  more 
I  see  of  the  middle-class  German  and  Frenchman,  the  more  I 
am  surprised  by  the  small  residuum  of  their  school  course. 
They  are  not  intellectual  or  even  literary,  and  perhaps  nature 
has  ordained  that  the  great  majority  of  men  shall  not  be 
intellectual  or  literary.     If  so,  ilfaiit  en  prendre  son  parti. 

"Dec.  '78.  Some  ten  years  ago  Matthew  Arnold  was  sent 
by  the  Middle  Schools  Commission  to  inquire  into  the  school 
systems  of  the  Continent,  and  the  lesson  for  us  with  which  he 
returned  was  'Organize  (by  the  action  of  the  State)  your 
secondary   education,'      Whether   he   would    have    State   day 


Brighton   Grammar  School  187 

schools  as  in  Germany  or  State  boarding  scliools  as  in  P'rance, 
is  not  clear  from  his  Report,  nor  is  that  doubt  resolved  in  Iiis 
?iX\.\c\QForro  Hni/»i  uecessaiiuin  {Forfiiighf/y  Revieza,  Nov.  1878) . 
If  we  might  venture  to  measure  the  collective  wisdom  of  the 
French  nation  by  the  unwisdom  of  an  individual  foreign  critic 
(myself),  we  should  say  that  though  much  might  be  learnt 
from  our  neighbours  about  instruction,  they  teach  us  only  wliat 
to  avoid  in  education.  We  doubt  whether  the  collective 
wisdom  of  the  French  nation  is,  after  all,  quite  responsible 
for  the  lycees.  These  institutions  seem  rather  the  Jesuit 
Colleges  reformed  and  drilled  in  accordance  with  the  military 
ideal  of  the  First  Empire." 

Brighton  Grammar  School 

"I  have  to-day  (19  Oct.  '75)  spent  the  morning  from  9  to  12 
with  Mr  Marshall  at  the  Brighton  Grammar  School.  Mr  M.'s 
views  are  that  a  backbone  of  fact  must  be  committed  to  the 
memory  and  made  as  familiar  as  the  multiplication  table,  but 
that  great  discretion  must  be  used  in  selecting  this  amount  of 
fact  to  be  acquired.  Mr  M.  has  had  his  '  drill '  in  every  sub- 
ject printed,  and  the  boys  have  to  work  this  up  from  the  first 
and  to  keep  it  up  all  the  time  they  are  in  the  school.  Mr  M. 
is  the  very  opposite  of  a  crammer  and  he  endeavours  to  mini- 
mise the  amount  of  fact  as  much  as  possible.  In  history  he 
gives  no  fact  that  has  not  important  consequences  to  be 
deduced  from  it.  If  nothing  can  be  hung  on  the  peg  it  is 
discarded  as  useless.  I  may  be  doing  him  an  injustice  but  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  Mr  M.  thinks  of  the  reasoning 
powers  too  exclusively.  There  is  a  preparatory  school  under 
the  same  roof  and  some  boys  come  as  early  as  seven.  The 
younger  boys,  says  Mr  M.,  get  up  capitally.  All  boys  have 
something  definite  to  learn  by  heart  put  before  them,  and 
the  youngsters  acquire  the  '  drill '  with  great  satisfaction  to 
themselves  and  their  masters:     But  when  the  reason  is  called 


1 88  R.  H.  Quick 

upon  in  the  after  stages,  it  does  not  at  first  respond  and  for  a 
time  there  seems  little  progress.  But  if  they  have  got  accus- 
tomed to  learn  things  by  heart  without  any  thought  of  the 
meaning,  they  will  of  course  have  great  difficulty  in  changing 
their  method  of  study.  So  I  sliould  like  the  youngsters' 
imaginations  to  be  made  more  of,  and  the  drill  reserved  till  the 
knowledge  could  be  applied  as  soon  as  it  was  acquired.  But 
it  is  very  tempting,  as  all  teachers  have  found  it,  to  take 
Quintilian's  advice  and  teach  children  forms  of  words  which 
will  afterwards  come  in  useful.  But  though  I  think  the  drill 
may  be  begun  too  early,  I  heartily  agree  in  the  plan  of  taking 
the  essentials  and  learning  them  forwards  and  backwards  and 
every  other  way  and  keeping  them  up  —  a  provision  which 
unfortunately  is  often  neglected,  so  that  advanced  pupils  are 
puzzled  by  a  question  about  the  rudiments  of  their  subject.  I 
should  say  that  these  drill  tables  would  work  admirably  in 
making  the  essentials  familiar  to  all  the  boys  and  in  giving 
definiteness  and  continuity  to  the  instruction. 

"  Mr  M.  goes  in  for  more  elasticity  than  is  usual  in  large 
schools.  He  even  makes  the  hour  at  which  his  boarders  rise 
in  the  morning  vary.  He  rings  a  bell  in  every  dormitory  by  a 
wire  from  his  own  room  and  the  boys  have  to  assemble  20 
minutes  afterwards.  In  school  he  takes  a  subject  for  the 
prominent  subject  for  a  time,  and  then  another  subject  comes 
to  the  fore  and  the  other  is  merely  kept  up.  French  is  the 
leading  subject  at  present  and  has  five  hours  a  week  besides 
preparation.  .  .  . 

"  Mr  M.  had  a  capital  device  for  stimulating  his  boarders  to 
work.  Whenever  the  average  marks  gained  in  the  week  by  the 
house  reached  a  fixed  height,  he  had  an  evening  of  charades 
&c.,  ending  with  a  supper  of  hot  sausages  and  mashed 
potatoes.  Every  week  a  list  is  hung  up  and  kept  up  with  the 
boys'  marks  ;  those  over  the  average  are  called  helpers  and 
those  below,  who  form  a  division  by  themselves,  are  called 
hinderers.     There  are  a  number  of  house  prizes  given,  one  for 


Mr  Haw  trey  s  School  189 

the  best  chess  player,  one  for  the  boy  who  teaches  chess  best, 
one  for  the  best  actor  in  charades,  &c." 

Mr  Hatvtrey'' s  School  at  Sloi/gh 

"  The  boys  are  worked  on  a  thorough  system  which  knocks 
Latin  and  Greek  into  them  most  effectually  (does  it  knock  all 
else  out  of  them?).  They  work  from  8.30  to  i  in  the  morning 
with  half-an-hour's  break  ;  then  nothing  till  5,  when  they  have 
two  more  hours.  This  routine  goes  on  quite  regularly.  The 
effect  on  the  masters,  my  informant,  himself  a  master,  tells  me, 
is  that  they  seem  to  lose  all  individuality.  The  boys  never 
work  alone.  There  is  a  syntax  master  who  lectures  the  three 
divisions  of  the  school,  and  the  masters  make  their  own  exer- 
cises and  fit  in  everything  to  the  syntax  master's  teaching. 
Every  fortnight  there  is  an  examination  and  it  is  seen  how  each 
master's  boys  are  getting  on.  Hawtrey  pays  his  men  ^200  a 
year  with  board  and  lodging.  The  feeding  is  sumptuous  for 
everyone.  The  agreement  with  masters  is  that  they  may  be 
sacked  at  the  end  of  any  term  without  notice,  and  if  a  man's 
boys  do  badly  he  goes.  The  odd  thing  about  the  teaching  of 
classics  is  that  it  is  entirely  synthetical.  The  language  is  not 
taught  by  rules,  but  by  having  to  make  sentences  in  it  in  such 
a  way  that  the  knowledge  of  each  idiom  and  each  construction 
is  knocked  in,  and  construing  is  not  begun  till  high  up  ;  and 
O.  asserts  that  thus  it  comes  quite  easy.  The  boys  are  drilled 
for  Eton  and  at  Eton  they  generally  take  the  highest  place 
possible.  These  schools  seem  to  keep  a  particular  examination 
in  view,  and  to  teach  for  that.  If  you  would  succeed  you  must 
try  no  experiments.  For  scholarships  another  sort  of  training 
is  necessary.  You  must  hammer  away  at  verses.  Hawtrey 
does  not  teach  anything  himself,  but  simply  impresses  the  boys 
and  the  British  parent.  '  Before  I  went  to  Hawtrey's,'  said 
O.,  '  I  thought  boys  could  not  understand  the  Public  School 
Latin  Primer;  now  I  know  they  can,  and  that  it  is  a  splendid 
book  and  a  marvellously  powerful  instrument  in  the  master's 


190  R.  H.  Quick 

hands.'  For  my  part,  I  have  always  thought  it  folly  to  teach 
beghiners  the  greater  part  of  the  Primer.  Why  teach  the 
niceties  of  a  difficult  language  before  the  prominent  facts  have 
become  familiar  ?  I  want  boys  to  learn  partly  by  imitation, 
and  how  can  they  imitate  before  they  see  the  language  at 
work  ?  However,  I  am  so  totally  unsuccessful  in  every  way 
just  now  that  it  is  with  the  utmost  diffidence  that  I  would 
disagree  even  from  Hawtrey." 

Girls'  Grammar  School,  Bradfo7'd 

"  To-day  (26  Sept.  '77)  I  have  been  over  to  Bradford  to  see 
Miss  Porter  and  the  Girls'  Grammar  School.  My  impression 
of  the  school  is  very  favourable,  but  I  think  the  teachers  teach 
too  much.  There  is  no  place-taking.  ...  I  heard  a  history 
lesson  by  Miss  Larner.  No  text-book  was  used,  but  the 
teacher  read  extracts.  The  girls  attended  well  and  answered 
questions  briskly.  Miss  Porter  tells  me  the  Yorkshire  girls' 
schools  are  still  of  the  Squeers  type,  but  parents  think  the 
girls  must  '  finish  '  at  a  boarding  school.  The  girls  have  been 
very  badly  taught  before  coming  to  the  Grammar  School.  One 
girl  said  a  noun  was  of  the  *  common  aster  gender,'  and  stuck 
to  it  that  this  was  what  she  had  learnt  in  the  grammar  used 
at  the  previous  school.  The  book  was  produced,  and  on 
turning  to  the  place  Miss  Porter  found  the  statement  that 
some  noun  was  '  common  as  to  gender.'  Another  girl  main- 
tained that  there  was  only  one  continent  because  she  had 
heard  of  people  going  on  '///<?  continent.'  A  teacher  had  ex- 
plained '  Matthew  was  a  publican  '  as  meaning  that  he  went 
about  collecting  the  taxes  ;  this  was  reproduced  as '  St  Matthew 
used  to  go  about  picking  up  small  nails.'  " 

Btinsen  on  Schulpforte 

"12  Aug.  '79.  Rigi  Scheideck.  This  morning  I  had  a 
long  talk  with  Herr  v.  Bunsen.  He  was  educated  at  Schulp- 
forte.    He  says  the  boys  did  better  there  than  at  any  other 


Brighto7t  Grammar  School  191 

school  because  they  were  left  somewhat  to  their  own  initia- 
tive and  had  one  day  a  week  of  free  study.  During  this  day 
they  were  kept  in  certain  hours  just  as  on  other  days,  but  might 
choose  their  own  work.  The  plan  seems  to  have  ended  in 
some  cases  in  boys  putting  off  till  then  their  regular  school 
work.  The  main  thing  was  the  literary  and  classical  tone  of 
the  place.  Herr  v.  Bunsen  used  to  get  up  and  read  Homer 
for  an  hour  before  school,  though  he  declares  he  was  one  of 
the  idlest  boys  there.  The  boys  are  sent  by  certain  towns 
which  have  nominations,  at  least  some  200  are.  Herr  v.  B. 
wants  to  introduce  competition. 

"  He  says  education  made  great  strides  under  Falck.  The 
great  dispute  between  Realschule  and  Gymnasium  Bunsen 
would  end  by  doing  away  with  Realschulen  and  making  the 
Gymnasium  teach  more  mathematics  and  Naturvvissenschaft. 
For  this  he  would  make  time  by  doing  away  with  Latin  and 
Greek  composition  altogether.  There  ought  to  be  no  dis- 
tinction, as  there  now  is,  between  the  man  who  has  been  at  a 
Gymnasium  and  the  man  who  has  only  been  at  a  Realschule. 
Falck  had  not  the  wisdom  or  the  courage  to  deal  with  this 
great  Realschule  question,  and  now  a  reaction  has  set  in 
towards  the  system  of  Miiller." 

Attetidance  of  masteis  at  lessons 

"19  July  1880.  I  have  again  spent  the  morning  at  the 
Brighton  Grammar  School,  Mr  C.  J.  Marshall  letting  me  go 
about  wherever  I  liked  and  the  masters  receiving  me  with  ap- 
parent cordiality,  though  as  one  or  two  of  them  were  nervous 
they  were  probably  wishing  me  at  Jericho.  Their  attendance 
in  the  schoolroom  as  spectators  should,  I  think,  be  from  time 
to  time  enforced  on  all  masters.  As  I  have  before  found,  it 
brings  home  to  the  teacher  the  extreme  dullness  of  school 
work.  The  ordinary  schoolmaster  can  grind  boys  and  can 
do  nothing  else.      Now  Mr  Marshall  seems    to  me   to  have 


192  R.  H.  Quick 

accepted  this  state  of  things  and  to  have  worked  it  in  the 
most  successful  way  possible.  He  settles  certain  forms  of 
words  which  are  to  be  drilled  into  the  boys,  and  the  masters 
and  boys  then  have  a  definite  task  to  go  at.  Almost  all  our 
school-books  are  so  big  that  accurate  knowledge  of  them  is 
out  of  the  question,  so  boys  half  learn  their  lessons  and  then 
half  forget  the  half,  so  that  they  never  retain  more  than  a 
quarter,  if  that.  But  Mr  Marshall's  '  drills '  have  to  be  got 
up,  and  they  are  got  up.  There  is  therefore  a  continuity 
about  the  instruction  which  makes  it  simplex  et  idemT 
After  giving  his  impressions  of  various  classes  :  — 
"  Now  what  is  one  to  say  of  all  this  ?  One  finds  a  man 
of  very  high  intelligence  and  tremendous  energy  over  a  large 
school  where  he  has  very  inferior  men  for  his  assistants  and 
not  a  strong  staff  even  numerically.  To  exist  at  all  he  must 
'succeed,'  i.e.  he  must  satisfy  the  examination  test  imposed 
by  his  Committee  and  the  parents.  If  he  were  to  adopt  any 
peculiar  plan  founded  on  a  different  conception  of  education 
from  the  conception  in  the  minds  of  his  Committee  and 
parents,  the  school  would  foil  in  examination  and  he  would 
cease  to  be  headmaster.  Moreover  he  would  not,  even  if 
backed  up  by  his  Committee  and  parents,  carry  out  any  high 
conception  of  education,  for  his  assistants  would  not  be  able 
to  understand  it,  and  what  could  he  do  single-handed?  So 
he  goes  to  work  to  succeed  in  doing  what  the  generality  of 
schoolmasters  are  trying  to  do.  He  sees  that  most  school- 
masters fail  because  there  is  so  much  waste  in  their  schools. 
Boys  learn  things  by  heart  that  are  not  worth  learning,  and 
they  learn  so  as  never  thoroughly  to  know  them,  and  then 
they  cut  a  poor  figure  when  called  upon  to  '  answer  the 
examiner.'  Mr  Marshall  first  of  all  cuts  down  what  is  to 
be  learnt,  and  having  got  what  he  thinks  the  irreducible 
minimum,  he  organizes  his  school  so  that  this  minimum 
may  be  drilled  into  the  boys  thoroughly  and  continuously. 
Having    made    himself  quite   safe   as   far  as  the  examiner  is 


Teaching  by  drill  193 

concerned,  he  has  time,  he  says,  to  give  the  kind  of  instruc- 
tion which  educates.  But  he  seems  to  admit  that  no  one  is 
quaUfied  to  give  such  instruction  but  himself.  The  other 
masters  must  simply  carry  on  the  drill.  Now  I  haven't  the 
least  doubt  that  this  drill  system  is  excellent  for  examination 
purposes  :  it  secures  just  that  which  gets  such  high  marks  — 
perfect  accuracy.  But,  putting  the  examiner  out  of  sight  (as 
we  th'eorists  can,  and  the  schoolmaster  cannot),  we  may  con- 
sider whether  the  drill  system  is  good,  first  for  learning  the 
subjects,  second  for  education,  i.  In  learning  a  foreign  lan- 
guage it  is  of  immense  value  to  know  some  things,  e.g.  the 
auxiliary  verbs,  thoroughly.  Most  learners  fail  for  want  of 
knowing  perfectly  the  main  things.  E.g.  in  French  I  am 
bothered  because  even  the  numbers  do  not  call  up  the  right 
idea  without  my  having  to  think.  I  would  therefore  have  a 
drill  in  certain  things,  but  my  drill  would  leave  out  many 
rules  about  the  relative  (S:c.  which  may  help  at  a  later  stage 
to  classify  phenomena,  but  which  should  not  precede  the 
phenomena.  A  language  like  French  can't  be  put  together 
by  rule  :  it  must  be  learnt  by  imitation,  and  instead  of  drilling 
in  rules  which  children  cannot  apply,  I  should  rather  drill 
them  in  model  sentences,  then  vary  these  sentences  after  the 
Prendergastian  method.  Why  too  should  not  proverbs,  fables 
and  easy  poetry  be  learnt  by  heart?  I  admit  that  in  French 
the  pronunciation  is  here  fearfully  in  the  way.  To  sum  up, 
I  take  it  that  in  foreign  languages  drill  is  an  excellent  thing, 
but  I  don't  agree  with  Mr  Marshall  about  the  subject-matter 
of  the  drill." 

(After  a  sketch  of  what  a  geography  lesson  is  and  what  it 
should  be.) 

"  The  great  mistake  of  the  schoolroom  is  the  everlasting 
grind  in  the  apparatus  of  expression  and  the  means  of  getting 
ideas  without  any  attempt  to  occupy  the  minds  of  the  young 
with  the  ideas  themselves.  Though  the  one  powerful  faculty 
of  the  young  mind  is  the  imagination,  a  whole  morning  passes 


194  ^^-  ^^'   Quick 

without  a  single  image  being  brought  before  the  boy's  mind. 
He  manipulates  figures,  he  makes  unmeaning  marks  in  his 
copy  books,  he  learns  the  parts  of  French  irregular  verbs  and 
exercises  in  the  use  of  etre  with  reflexive  pronouns.  He  is 
taught  to  repeat  in  certain  connections  a  great  number  of 
proper  names,  and  these  names  are  called  either  history  or 
geography.  But  whatever  may  be  the  subject  the  school- 
master lays  hold  of,  he  forthwith  murders  it  to  dissect,  and 
makes  his  pupil  learn  up  the  names  of  the  disjecta  7neml)j-a 
without  giving  him  the  smallest  conception  of  their  relation 
to  the  whole.  A  young  Frenchman  at  the  grammar .  school 
is  found  to  know  much  less  about  French  (that  is,  to  have 
much  less  examination  knowledge  of  French)  than  his  class- 
mates, and  when  the  schoolmaster  lays  hold  of  the  unfortunate 
English  language  he  tortures  it  till  it  is  black  in  the  face,  so  to 
speak,  and  looks  as  hideous  as  Latin  grammar  or  any  other 
mummy  in  his  collection." 

Sedbergh   Grammar  School 

Governors'  Meeting 

"31.  7.  84.  It  is  impossible  for  a  large  Committee  to 
manage  things.  One  or  two  must  manage  and  the  rest  take 
a  back  seat.  This  makes  it  difficult  to  decide  what  I  ought 
to  do  when  placed  ex  officio  on  the  Governing  Body.  Mr  F.  S. 
Powell  has  made  a  hobby  of  the  school  and  has  determined 
that  it  shall  be  in  his  own  phrase  the  Eton  of  the  North. 
His  policy  therefore  has  been  to  make  it  as  good  a  school 
as  it  can  be  made  by  any  amount  of  outlay.  The  Charity 
Commissioners  seem  to  have  intended  that  it  should  be  a 
cheap  classical  school,  but  they  weakly  consented  to  very 
expensive  buildings  being  raised,  bargaining  only  that  the 
capital  thus  spent  should  be  paid  back  in  instalments.  This 
seems  to  me  rather  an  odd  policy,  for  it  makes  the  school  a 


Sedbergh  Grauimar  School  195 

dear  classical  school  at  present  so  as  to  provide  for  a  cheap 
classical  school  hereafter.  It  makes  the  present  generation 
pay  in  part  for  future  generations. 

"  But  Mr  Powell  wants  a  school  with  every  possible  ad- 
vantage in  the  way  of  buildings  &c.,  so  he  gets  the  Com- 
missioners to  release  us  from  this  repayment  to  capital  for 
several  years  and  spends  money  on  an  expensive  sanatorium. 
His  zeal  is  of  the  most  genuine  kind,  and  he  himself  gives 
a  swimming-bath  while  Mr  Wakefield  gives  a  gymnasium. 
All  these  things  are  great  advantages  no  doubt,  but  they  all, 
even  when  given,  increase  the  cost  of  education.  My  notion 
is  that  a  fine  educational  endowment  like  ours  should  not  be 
devoted  to  providing  the  rich  with  cheap  luxuries,  so  I  find 
myself  in  opposition  to  the  Powellian  policy.  But  Mr  Powell 
has  already  gone  so  far  that  even  were  he  to  die  to-morrow, 
it  would  be  very  hard  to  reverse  the  policy  and  bring  down 
the  expenses.  All  I  can  do  is  to  keep  it  in  check  as  much 
as  possible. 

"  In  another  matter  I  find  myself  in  opposition  to  my 
co-governors.  Mr  Birkbeck  calmly  announces  that  as  no 
penalties  are  attached  to  our  breaking  through  the  provisions 
of  our  scheme  we  are  at  liberty  to  neglect  them  whenever 
we  please,  and  leave  it  to  the  Charity  Commissioners  or 
anybody  who  hkes  to  take  us  to  task.  The  Governors  have 
always  acted  in  this  spirit.  They  have  not  attempted  to 
provide  an  English  education  for  Sedbergh  boys,  though  the 
scheme  gives  these  boys  an  English  day-school  at  ^^  a  year 
as  the  maximum  fee.  Again,  they  have  only  once  in  eight 
years  published  their  accounts,  though  bound  to  do  so  yearly. 
This  policy  1  am  distinctly  opposed  to.  The  Governors  say 
quite  truly  that  they  wish  the  welfare  of  the  school  as  much 
as  the  public  does,  and  they  understand  it  better,  so  they 
don't  want  the  public  to  interfere.  But  a  school  of  a  par- 
ticular sort  was  by  law  established,  and  these  gentlemen  are 
pleased  to  substitute  what  they  think  better.     It  seems  to  me 


196  /v.  //.   Quick 

that  it  is  more  important  that  we  should  be  a  law-abiding 
people  than  that  Messrs  Powell  and  Birkbeck  should  have 
free  scope  to  carry  out  their  private  ideals  with  public  property, 
however  admirable  those  ideals  may  be." 

Our  middle-class  private  schools 

"8.  II.  80.  Terrible  tales  are  told  of  these  schools,  and 
one  tries  to  think  they  cannot  be  as  black  as  they  are  painted  ; 
but  what  I  have  seen  to-day  makes  me  fear  the  worst.  I  have 
been  over  two  connected  houses  of  F.  P.'s  at  Leatherhead. 
They  are  occupied  by  an  old  lady  and  her  son,  she  occupying 
one  house  as  a  girls'  school  and  he  the  other  as  a  boys'. 
The  rooms  are  all  very  small  and  the  houses  are  in  no  way 
adapted  for  school  purposes,  but  twenty-two  girls  were  at  one 
time  crammed  in  as  boarders,  and  there  are  fifteen  now.  I 
don't  know  what  the  charge  for  them  is,  but  it  must  be  very 
low,  for  the  filth  and  general  decay  of  the  place  made  it 
unfit  for  human  habitation.  The  schoolmistress  was  evi- 
dently engaged  in  a  grim  struggle  to  live,  and  hardly  a 
successful  struggle  ;  at  least  she  is  two  or  three  quarters  in 
arreat  with  her  rent,  and  is  scheming  to  get  away  without 
paying  it.  No  parents  who  had  any  regard  for  their  children 
would  send  them  to  such  a  place,  and  yet  unfortunate  children 
are  sent  to  her.  How  is  it  that  they  are  kept  alive?  They 
are  crowded  six  or  eight  of  them  into  a  small  bedroom  not 
large  enough  for  two  (of  course  they  sleep  two  in  a  bed). 
The  kitchen  department  stunk  so  fearfully  that  we  could 
hardly  get  near  it.  There  was  an  entire  absence  of  washing 
or  cleanliness  of  every  kind  throughout  the  place.  The  space 
of  ground  behind,  which  was  supposed  to  be  a  garden,  was 
given  up  to  fowls,  which  seem  also  to  frequent  the  stairs  of 
the  kitchen  floor.  Yet  this  was  a  '  genteel '  school,  and  the 
mistress  complained  that  she  could  not  get  day  pupils,  for 
there  were  no  middle-class  families  living  near  and  the  parents 


Private  Schools  197 

of  her  boarders  •would  not  allow  her  to  take  tradespeople's 
children.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  sanitary  science  there  is 
bound  sooner  or  later  to  be  an  outbreak  of  fever  or  some 
zymotic  disease,  for  every  precept  of  that  science  is  utterly 
disregarded.  But  if  the  poor  children  do  escape  so  far,  their 
general  health  and  growth  must  suffer  terribly.  The  food 
from  such  a  kitchen  could  not  be  wholesome,  and  while  the 
mistress's  grim  struggle  with  poverty  is  going  on  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  food  given  is  what  it  ought  to  be  either  in 
quality  or  quantity.  I  think  we  are  as  a  nation  extremely 
culpable  in  allowing  such  schools  to  be  kept.  We  do  not 
permit  the  poor  to  put  their  children  to  work.  There  are 
thousands  of  labourers  earning  18^.  a  week  and  less  who 
could  get  6j".  a  week  more  for  their  children's  hire  if  they 
were  allowed  to  sell  it,  but  they  are  not.  These  men  are 
compelled  by  the  state  to  forego  for  the  education  of  their 
children  a  sum  equal  to  a  third  of  their  whole  earnings. 
Yet,  while  we  make  this  demand  in  one  class,  we  permit 
another  class  to  escape  from  the  care  of  their  children  or 
to  place  them  where  they  are  starved  and  stunted  in  mind 
and  body,  simply  to  escape  paying  for  them  what  they  ought 
to  pay." 

Private  Schools 

"  23.  9.  88.  W.  J.,  who  has  to-day  left  us,  has  given  me 
a  glimpse  behind  the  scenes  in  private  school  life  which  may 
be,  and  sometimes  is,  truly  horrible.  Everything  is  in  the 
hands  of  some  big  fellow  or  of  a  knot  of  two  or  three  big 
fellows,  and  they  are  apt  to  abuse  their  power.  W.  J.  was 
some  years  ago  at  A.'s  school.  A.  had  been,  I  think,  a  fairly 
good  schoolmaster,  but  not  a  man  of  a  very  high  type.  The 
latter  part  of  his  time  he  gave  up  concerning  himself  with 
the  out-of-school  life  of  the  boys,  and  the  assistants  simply 
let  things  slide.     So  the  most  atrocious  bullying  became  the 


198  R.  H.  Quick 

common  thing.  In  bathing  the  small  boys  were  held  under 
water  till  they  came  to  dread  the  bathing  day.  The  biggest 
boys  established  a  regular  system  of  robbing  little  boys.  If  a 
small  boy  brought  back  gold  this  was  taken  from  him,  and 
he  was  allowed  to  keep  any  odd  silver  he  might  have.  If  he 
had  no  gold  he  was  robbed  of  his  silver  and  allowed  only  to 
keep  his  coppers.  Tuck  was  carried  off  from  some  boys,  and 
when  one  of  them  tried  to  conceal  it  in  a  friend's  box,  the 
box  was  kicked  to  pieces.  W,  J.  on  one  occasion  was  robbed 
of  5^.,  which  was  taken  out  of  his  pocket.  He  lost  his  temper 
and  became  dangerous,  so  the  robbers  tried  to  pacify  him  by 
giving  him  back  half-a-crown.  However,  he  marched  off  to 
find  the  headmaster,  and  the  robbers  then  implored  him  not 
to  tell  and  gave  back  all  his  money.  Except  among  the 
professional  criminal  class  there  is,  as  far  as  I  know,  nothing 
that  comes  up  to  the  shameless  immorality  one  finds  in 
school  life." 

Z '  Ecole  Mo  dele,  Brussels 

"  I  May  '79.  I  have  just  visited  this  school.  The  plan 
of  the  building  and  all  the  physical  arrangements  and  appa- 
ratus are  admirable.     [These  are  fully  described.] 

"  I  saw  some  teaching,  but  it  was  not  remarkable.  First 
a  reading  lesson.  Each  boy  who  read  had  to  come  to  the 
master's  estrade.  There  was  no  record  kept  of  his  perform- 
ance. There  was  nothing,  as  far  as  I  could  see,  to  keep  up 
the  attention  of  the  rest.  The  reading  was  of  an  ordinary 
kind.  Very  soon  the  lesson  slipped  away  into  a  grammar 
lesson,  both  form  master  and  director  putting  questions  about 
when  qiielqiie  is  variable  &c.  These  grammatical  distinctions 
are  sure  to  crop  up  when  French  is  the  language.  I  after- 
wards heard  the  youngest  children  (about  thirty-four  of  them) 
do  arithmetic.  Any  questions,  or  rather  problems,  were  asked 
and  a  particular  child  put  on  to  answer  and  discuss  them,  and 


Brussels  Schools  199 

then  to  come  up  and  make  lines  on  the  board  or  use  the  appa- 
ratus to  test  the  answer.  The  consequence  was  that  very  few 
of  the  thirty-four  did  anything  at  all.  A  great  effort  is  made 
to  get  correct  conceptions  and  to  avoid  words  without  ideas. 
Hence  no  books  are  used  except  as  reading  books.  Unfor- 
tunately the  anti-clerical  position  endangers  the  equilibrium  of 
the  teacher.  I  asked  about  a  scholars'  library.  I  was  told 
there  was  one,  but  it  was  difficult  to  get  books  for  it ;  all  the 
Government  books  were  written  by  the  clergy,  Jesuits  &c. 
The  arrangement  of  studies  gives  no  home  work.  There  are 
four  lessons  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  afternoon.  The 
lessons  are  45  minutes  in  length,  and  the  odd  15  minutes 
are  spent  in  play  in  the  open  court  or,  when  it  rains,  in  the 
inner  covered  court.  I  am  inclined  to  think  the  45  minutes 
plan  is  a  good  one.  The  French  have  two-hour  lessons,  and 
English  masters,  when  they  have  lessons  they  like,  such  as 
Latin,  find  one  hour  barely  enough.  But  we  should  look  at 
things  from  the  boys'  point  of  view,  and  to  them  the  time 
seems  at  least  twice  as  long  as  it  does  to  us.  Of  course 
some  lessons  might  be  longer  than  others,  but  I  suspect  the 
lessons  which  interest  the  teachers  are  not  those  which  should 
go  over  the  45  minutes.  All  the  scholars  have  three  gymnastic 
lessons  of  half-an-hour  in  the  week." 


A  Brussels  Girls'  School 

"3  May  '79.  I  have  just  come  in  from  a  visit  to  the 
Rue  de  la  Paille  girls'  school.  The  buildings  and  plant  are 
wonderful.  Everything  is  light,  airy,  beautifully  clean  and 
entirely  without  dust.  It  looks  as  if  the  place  had  just  been 
put  in  thorough  repair.  How  on  earth  do  they  keep  it  in 
this  state?  In  the  school  I  was  as  much  pleased  with  the 
immaterial  as  the  material  belongings.  The  Directress,  a  very 
bright,  pleasant  little  body  of  some  forty  years,  took  me  about 
everywhere. 


200  R.   H.  Quick 

"  First  I  saw  a  geography  lesson  given  to  the  youngest  class 
but  one.  The  children  were  seven  to  eight  years  old  and  over 
thirty  in  number.  It  seems  geography  is  begun  with  a  plan 
of  the  room,  the  corridors  &c.,  but  this  stage  had  been  passed 
and  the  subject  was  the  town  of  Brussels.  They  were  in  a 
splendid  class-room,  which  would  easily  have  taken  twice  the 
number  of  children.  On  the  walls  were  large  and  handsome 
engravings  of  Schiller,  Luther  &c.  There  was  a  long  table  at 
which  about  twenty  could  sit ;  the  rest  of  the  room  was  free. 
I'here  was  a  large  black-board  which  worked  up  and  down  in 
two  parts  like  window-frames.  The  children,  when  we  went 
in,  had  plans  of  Brussels,  one  for  each  child,  spread  on  the 
table.  The  children  themselves  were  on  the  floor.  A  long 
piece  of  cord  was  held  by  five  or  six  children  to  represent 
the  boulevards,  with  labels  of  the  different  boulevards  strung 
on  it  at  the  proper  intervals.  The  teacher  went  on  in  this 
way.  '  All  in  Brussels.'  Thereupon  all  the  children  except 
the  cord-holders  crowded  into  the  enclosure  made  by  the 
cord.  Then  the  teacher  cried  out :  '  Marie  N.,  go  to  the 
Faubourg  so  and  so.'  The  child  set  out  and  sometimes 
went  right,  sometimes  wrong.  When  she  went  wrong  all  the 
others  showed  great  eagerness  to  set  her  right.  They  were 
asked  about  the  points  of  the  compass,  and  sent  at  times  to 
look  at  the  maps.  Should  not  a  compass  have  been  in  the 
room?  W^hen  they  had  had  enough  of  this  running  about 
they  went  to  their  places,  and  the  teacher  made  them  answer 
questions  about  it.  She  made  them  describe  what  they  saw 
in  streets  through  which  they  were  in  the  habit  of  passing, 
thus  bringing  their  observation  to  consciousness  and  making 
them  keep  their  eyes  open  for  the  future.  The  Directress 
told  me  that  they  made  plans  for  themselves  (at  school  — 
there  is  no  home  work). 

"  I  wonder  there  was  no  large  plan  for  the  wall.  A  few 
children  did  not  follow  the  questions  about  these  plans  but 
most   did,  and    the  general  interest  in  the  lesson  was  most 


Bnisscls  Schools  201 

marked.  There  was  just  the  right  amount  of  noise  and  move- 
ment without  disorder.  The  teacher's  manner  was  very  cahii 
and  good.  She  was  young,  not  more  than  one-and-twenty  at 
a  guess.  At  the  top  of  the  house  is  a  capital  gymnasium, 
used  also  for  dancing.  There  are  two  lessons  of  gymnastics 
a  day  of  20  minutes  each.  We  paid  a  short  visit  to  a  room 
where  some  twenty-five  girls  were  having  a  lesson  in  botany. 
Each  had  a  flower  before  her  which  she  was  dissecting. 
Round  the  room  were  good  diagrams  by  Wettstein.  In 
another  room  were  large  animal  pictures  by  Leutemann,  some 
of  which  have  found  their  way  to  England.  But  the  best 
apparatus  of  all  was  that  for  teaching  physiology — skeleton, 
models  of  eye  and  ear  &c.  One  would  have  thought  the 
girls  must  have  been  intended  for  doctors,  but  Miss  Staps 
(a  friend  of  the  Bradleys  who  talked  excellent  English)  told 
me  she  found  physiology  and  anatomy  interested  the  girls 
immensely  and  drew  out  the  intelligence  even  of  the  dullest. 
Physical  subjects  and  science  are  evidently  the  strong  point  of 
the  school,  and  literature  seems  made  nothing  of.  Nothing 
is  learnt  by  heart.  I  saw  a  lesson  in  heat  which  I  am  in- 
competent to  criticise.  The  only  other  lesson  I  saw  was  a 
repetition  of  viva  voce  examination  in  history.  The  girls  were 
about  fourteen.  Here  I  found  what  I  remember  being  struck 
with  at  Halle,  that  pupils  can  be  '  put  on,'  and  go  on  giving 
an  account  of  what  they  have  learnt  just  as  if  they  were 
reading  a  book.  The  part  of  history  was  the  contest  between 
the  Popes  and  Emperors  from  Barbarossa's  time.  The  girls 
showed  great  interest,  and  as  they  were  named  they  rose  and 
spoke  away  with  great  fluency.  All  attended  and  showed 
disapproval  if  the  girl  who  '  had  the  word '  went  wrong.  I 
think  almost  all  were  put  on,  but  some  who  were  good  went 
on  several  times.  The  attention  was  excellent  throughout  the 
lesson,  which  was  a  very  long  one  —  over  an  hour.  Each  girl 
had  an  atlas  open  before  her,  but  no  other  book.  I  am  sur- 
prised the  teacher  does  not  record  any  of  the  performances 


202  R.  H.  Qiiick 

of  the  pupils.  Such  a  record  seems  to  me  very  necessary. 
1  am  going  again  to  hear  a  language  lesson.  'J'he  foreign 
languages  taught  are  German,  EngUsh,  and  Flemish,  but  a 
pupil  must  choose  two.  Each  language  has  two  hours  a  week 
given  it,  but  the  Directress  agreed  this  was  not  enough.  She 
said  their  progress  was  nothing  to  boast  of." 

Other  Brussels  Schools 

"  9  May  '79.  I  have  just  come  in  from  visiting  schools 
with  M.  Buls.  First  we  visited  a  communal  school  of  1100 
children.  The  attendance  of  the  children  is  regular  though 
voluntary,  but  the  age  of  leaving  is  low.  The  clerical  party 
will  not  put  off  the  first  Communion  beyond  twelve,  and  it 
is  a  tradition  not  to  go  to  school  after  that.  Many  leave 
even  earlier.  Parents  may  withdraw  children  from  religious 
instruction,  and  the  children  thus  withdrawn  have  an  extra 
gymnastic  lesson  instead.  The  material  provision  at  least  of 
these  Belgian  schools  is  excellent.  The  school  was  built 
round  an  open  court.  The  court  was  divided  down  the 
middle  and  one  was  the  boys'  side,  the  other  the  girls',  but 
this  distinction  does  not  seem  strictly  observed.  We  first 
saw  and  heard  some  girls  singing  and  marching.  The  time 
and  words  lent  themselves  to  stamping  &:c.  We  then  went 
into  a  classe  mnternelle,  a  kind  of  kindergarten  for  children 
of  five.  The  girls  and  boys  are  not  taught  together  even  at 
this  age,  and  the  boy-class  of  these  little  ones  was  taught  by 
young  women.  I  was  very  much  struck  by  the  vast  superiority 
in  manner  of  the  women  over  the  men.  All  the  class-rooms 
were  admirably  fitted  up.  Each  child  had  a  separate  desk. 
The  maximum  number  allowed  in  a  class  was  forty  ;  but  thirty 
seemed  the  average  number.  All  round  the  room  the  wall, 
from  the  height  of  2  ft.  to  5  ft.  about,  was  fitted  with  black- 
board, or  in  some  cases  slate.  At  the  top  of  this  was  a 
shelf,  and  over  it  ran  round  two  bars,  to  which  were  hooked 


Brussels  Schools  203 

pictures.  Every  room  had  its  (•ollectioi\  of  colourcil  pictures, 
animals  &c.  To  go  back  to  the  classes  mate inc lies,  a  big 
board,  fixed  at  one  end  of  the  room,  was  covered  with  hnes 
dividing  it  into  small  checpiers.  All  the  children's  desks  had 
a  slate  let  into  the  surface  of  them  so  as  to  be  a  fixture  and 
flush  with  the  surface  of  the  desk.  In  this  class  the  slates 
thus  let  in  were  lined  just  like  the  big  board.  Patterns  were 
drawn  on  the  big  board  for  the  children  to  copy.  Every 
desk  had  a  ball  fastened  to  it  by  a  string.  The  balls  were 
of  bright  colours,  one  blue,  one  red  ^:c.  The  children, 
swinging  the  balls,  sang  a  pretty  ball  song.  Then  the  lattes 
(small  laths)  were  given  out  and  the  children  told  to  make 
a  fan,  which  they  did  fairly  well.  I  was  shown  a  good  deal 
of  Froeljel  apparatus,  but  M.  Buls  said  that  Froebel  was  not 
understood  in  Belgium  yet :  there  was  too  much  teaching  in 
the  infiint  schools,  and  he  was  endeavouring  to  change  this. 
In  the  boys'  room  one  of  the  divisions  of  the  slate  round  the 
room  was  taken  for  a  Table  (VJioiineur,  and  on  it  appeared 
the  names  of  the  children  who  had  done  well.  W^e  after- 
wards saw  a  lesson  in  geography.  No  book  is  u§ed  by  the 
pupils.  The  subject  of  the  lesson  was  a  journey  from  Brussels 
to  Ghent.  On  the  blackboard  were  written  down  the  dif- 
ferent ways  in  which  the  journey  might  be  made:  (i)  on 
foot,  (2)  on  horseback,  (3)  by  rail,  (4)  by  water.  'I  he  class 
had  a  good-sized  (but  not  good)  map  of  Belgium  before  it; 
the  teacher  asked  questions,  calling  up  particular  boys  to 
point  to  the  map.  The  lesson  was  well  enough,  but  not  re- 
markable. In  one  room  we  found  two  doctors  who  are  going 
round  to  examine  children's  eyesight.  I  was  told  that  the 
number  of  colour-blind  is  very  large  indeed.  There  is  one 
break  in  the  morning's  work,  and  it  was  a  pretty  sight  to  see 
so  many  chiklren  running  about.  A  few  organised  games.  I 
was  struck  with  the  low  average  age. 

"  We  went  afterwards  to  the  Ecole  Normale.     The  teachers 
have  two  years  (14  to    16)   of  preparatory  instruction,  then 


204  R-  H.  Quick 

three  years  of  normal  instruction,  then  one  year  of  trial. 
Daring  their  three  years  they  have  practice  in  teaching.  A 
communal  school  is  connected  with  the  girls'  normal  school, 
but  the  lads  have  to  go  out  to  the  schools  in  the  town.  In 
all  the  rooms  I  visited  I  was  struck  with  the  beautiful  and 
costly  apparatus.  The  professors  of  the  University  give  lessons 
in  the  girls'  school.  The  photographs  which  the  Professor 
used  in  his  lectures  on  geography  were  admirable." 


Ecole  Modl'le  {cont.') 

"i2  May  '79.  I  asked  the  Director,  M.  Sluys,  what  he 
considered  the  best  book  on  education,  and  he  said  Herbert 
Spencer,  past  a  doubt.  The  education  of  the  Ecole  Modele 
is,  like  Herbert  Spencer,  a  violent  reaction  from  literary  edu- 
cation. The  first  lesson  I  saw  was  given  by  M.  Sluys  to  some 
very  young  children,  about  thirty  in  number.  They  were  in 
the  Museum.  To  manage  a  number  of  children  on  the  floor 
of  a  Museum  full  of  models  &c.  and  with  little  free  space 
required  some  art,  but  these  children  are  capitally  drilled  and 
each  class  is  as  manageable  as  a  regiment.  The  plan  of  three- 
quarter  hour  lessons  and  one-quarter  hour  play  involves  a  great 
deal  of  this  drill,  and  the  classes  are  marched  out  into  the  play- 
ground and  back,  each  under  its  master.  If  this  were  not 
smartly  done  there  would  be  great  waste  of  time.  A  great 
bell  rings  some  minutes  before  the  end  of  each  lesson.  The 
children  then  in  the  Museum  were  fairly  orderly.  The  at- 
tentive and  intelligent  should  have  been  ranged  behind,  but 
this  was  not  the  case  always,  and  1  saw  some  small  '  larks  ' 
going  on. 

"  M.  Sluys  gave  a  lesson  on  shells,  which  was  very  good, 
but  a  little  above  the  children.  He  had  plenty  of  specimens, 
and  whenever  he  brought  out  a  new  shell  all  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  it.     One  good  point   in  the  lesson  :  he  kept  the  larger 


Brussels  Schools  205 

and  more  beautiful  specimens  till  the  end.  The  class-master 
was  present  and  took  notes  —  I  suppose  for  recapitulation 
with  the  children  in  a  subsequent  lesson.  The  children 
were  moved  about  the  room  without  any  confusion,  and  they 
did  not  seem  to  have  their  attention  distracted  by  other  ob- 
jects. Near  them  m  one  place  was  a  fearful  model  of  a 
man  without  his  skin,  so  ghastly  that  it  nearly  made  me 
sick.  This  lesson  of  three-quarters  of  an  hour  was  quite 
enough  for  children,  almost  too  much.  This  three-quarters 
of  an  hour  for  all  lessons  and  all  ages  seems  a  questionable 
plan.  Half-an-hour  would  be  long  enough  for  difficult  lessons 
with  children  and  an  hour  not  too  long  for  some  lessons  with 
boys  of  twelve  and  over. 

"  I  next  went  to  an  excellent  singing  lesson.  The  boys 
(about  nine  years  old)  sat  in  their  places  mostly  and  waved 
their  hands  to  mark  time.  Every  variety  of  exercise  was 
gone  through  with  them.  The  master  named  notes,  Do,  sol, 
mi  &c.,  and  the  children  sang  them.  He  then  hummed 
notes  and  the  children  named  them.  Then  he  gave  them 
a  musical  dict^e.  He  sang  a  tune  and  the  children  were 
supposed  to  write  the  score  in  books  they  had  with  ruled 
lines.  Many  failed  in  this.  Then  they  stood  on  the  floor 
beside  their  desks  and  sang  and  marched,  marking  time  with 
their  feet.  Then  they  sang  from  notes  Danhauser's  Solf^ge. 
The  attention  of  the  boys  was  excellent,  though,  with  the 
exception  of  the  march  and  another  song  from  memory,  they 
did  nothing  but  grind  steadily  all  the  lesson.  One  exercise 
was  writing  a  phrase  of  music  on  the  board  and  then  calling 
on  .one  boy  to  sing  it  forward,  the  next  to  sing  it  backward, 
and  so  on. 

"  I  afterwards  saw  some  drawing.  Here  things  were  not 
made  interesting.  Geometrical  drawing  is  the  only  thing 
allowed,  and  a  lesson  in  it  is  given  to  each  boy  every  day. 
They  have  to  make  a  solid  of  some  kind  in  cardboard  and 
then  draw  it  in  different  ways.     Free-hand  drawing,  M.  Sluys 


2o6  R.  H.  Quick 

says,  has  been  given  up  entirely  as  unsuited  to  primary 
education. 

"  In  the  afternoon  I  saw  what  is  called  a  dictation  lesson 
in  geometry.  The  children  were  ranged  round  the  room, 
each  provided  with  a  bit  of  chalk.  The  Director  then  dic- 
tated. *  In  the  left-hand  corner  of  the  slate  six  inches  from 
the  bottom  and  three  inches  from  the  left-hand  division  make 
a  point  and  call  it  A.'  Then  at  a  given  sign  all  the  children 
faced  about,  each  to  the  wall-slate  appropriated  to  him,  and 
marked  the  point.  Further  directions  were  given  out  one  by 
one  till  a  square  was  completed.  The  plan  of  wall-slates  has 
great  advantages.  The  master  from  his  desk  can  look  round 
the  room  and  see  what  everyone  has  done.  It  is  a  good  thing, 
too,  to  accustom  the  children  to  do  things  on  a  large  scale. 
I  dare  say  work  of  this  sort  would  prepare  the  way  for 
geometry.  Each  child  has  a  measure,  and  has  to  verify  with 
it  the  figure  he  has  drawn.  But  the  teaching  was  rather  dry 
and  severe  for  such  very  small  children.  M.  Sluys  is  evidently 
something  of  a  driver,  or  at  least  of  a  drill  sergeant,  but  he 
does  seem  to  get  the  minds  to  march. 

"  We  then  had  an  excellent  lesson  to  the  youngest  class 
on  the  plan  of  the  building.  A  large  and  well-executed  plan 
was  set  before  the  children  in  the  preau.  A  child  with  a 
pointer  showed  the  way  in  from  the  boulevard,  and  pointed 
the  doors,  staircases  &c.  Being  asked  what  one  of  the  stair- 
cases led  up  to  he  couldn't  say,  so  he  was  sent  to  run  up  the 
staircase  and  see.  As  he  went  on  with  the  plan  one  boy  was 
sent  to  this  point,  another  to  another,  to  show  they  knew  what 
was  going  on.     A  capital  lesson." 

A  criticism  of  tlie  Ecole  Modele 

"15  May  '79.  Bonn.  1  have  to-day  written  to  M.  Buls,  as 
he  asked  me,  to  let  hiin  have  suggestions  about  the  Ecole 
Modele.     My  main    criticism    is    this :  —  Your   school   repre- 


Jesuit  Schools  207 

sents  the  reaction  against  the  old  Uterary  training,  which  for 
children  was  too  often  a  verbal  training  only.  The  subject 
of  the  old  teaching  was  the  mind  of  man  as  it  expressed 
itself  in  books.  The  reaction  turns  from  this  subject  and 
turns  to  the  material  world  and  studies  its  phenomena  and 
its  laws.  But  this  reaction  seems  to  me  in  danger  of  falling 
into  an  error  similar  to  that  of  the  old  teaching.  The  great 
books  were  not  written  for  children,  and  so  the  subject  of 
children's  instruction  was  not  suited  for  children.  They  had 
to  learn  Virgil  and  Cicero,  or  else  the  grammar  required  for 
reading  Virgil  and  Cicero.  The  child-mind  does  not  (and 
I  think  cannot)  look  at  nature  in  the  scientific  way.  The 
subject  of  instruction  will  therefore  be  unsuited  for  children, 
if  it  is  science  or  the  grammar  of  science.  Children  may 
indeed  be  taught  to  know  about  things :  but  there  is,  I 
think,  some  danger  of  this  instruction  being  made  too  scien- 
tific in  form. 

"  Unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  I  have  here  hit  on  the 
main  blot  of  these  schools.  They  appeal  too  exclusively  to 
the  child's  intellect,  and  they  exercise  the  intellect  too  ex- 
clusively on  the  physical  world." 

Jesuit  Schools 

"  The  great  thing  observable  in  the  Jesuit  Schools,  as 
throughout  the  organisation  of  the  Society,  is  the  economy 
of  force.  This  was  attained  by  unnatural  limitations.  First 
as  to  the  object :  everything  was  to  be  directed  to  increase 
the  influence  of  the  Society.  The  school  system,  then,  was 
to  be  constructed  with  that  object.  In  those  trained  for 
Jesuits  not  the  whole  man  was  to  be  cultivated,  but  just  so 
much  of  him  as  the  Society  wanted.  The  pupils  not  in- 
tended for  the  Society  were  to  be  trained  so  as  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  Society  and  under  its  influences.  Their  schools 
had  to  be  popular.     They  therefore  were  to  give  gratis  the 


2o8  R.  H.  Quick 

best  instruction  then  obtainable  in  the  subjects  of  instruc- 
tion then  most  in  request.  Economy  of  force  is  seen  in  the 
organisation  of  the  school.  The  Rector  was  to  give  unity 
by  not  being  attached  to  any  part  of  the  school,  but  by 
regulating  the  whole  and  seeing  that  each  master  did  his 
appointed  work.  The  economy  was  shown  in  the  concentra- 
tion of  the  masters  on  their  work.  They  were  not  to  study 
for  themselves  ;  all  their  time  and  thought  were  to  be  given 
to  their  pupils.  They  were  to  make  their  progress  the  one 
thing  ever  kept  in  view.  The  master  kept  his  pupils  all  the 
way  up  the  school,  and  thus  thoroughly  studied  their  character 
and  economised  his  influence. 

"  I  should  doubt  how  far  this  plan  would  be  found  to 
work.  My  own  experience  is  that  one's  relations  with  a  boy 
and  one's  feelings  towards  him  vary  very  much  from  time 
to  time.  At  first  one's  relations  are  very  pleasant  or  quite 
the  reverse ;  the  former  being  much  the  more  common  case. 
But  the  boy  who  at  first  never  meets  one  without  a  smile 
can't  go  on  grinning  week  after  week,  month  after  month. 
So  one's  relations  speedily  become  more  official,  and  we 
pass  one  another  in  the  street  with  fixed  countenance  and 
the  regulation  salute.  Then  something  goes  wrong,  some 
lessons  are  badly  prepared,  some  exercise  carelessly  written. 
We  come  down  on  our  young  friend  and  relations  be- 
come somewhat  strained.  Occasionally  we  detect  him  in  a 
serious  fault,  say  a  deception  of  which  we  should  have  sup- 
posed him  incapable.  In  this  case  our  feelings  undergo  an 
entire  change,  and  we  should  like  to  have  nothing  more  to 
do  with  him.  But  by  and  by  this  phase  too  passes  away, 
and  perhaps  a  series  of  others  succeed.  At  times  we  re- 
member with  a  kind  of  astonishment  our  intercourse  with  a 
boy  in  times  past.  Is  it  possible  that  we  were  ever  on  the 
most  friendly  footing  with  so-and-so,  who,  though  we  have 
never  quarrelled  with  him,  looks  upon  us  as  '  the  enemy ' 
and  gives  a   mental  cave  whenever  he    catches  sight  of  us? 


Jesuit  Schools  209 

Changes,  too,  in  the  opposite  direction  are  not  uncommon. 
A  fellow  we  have  had  a  good  deal  of  trouble  with  at  one 
time  comes  to  a  sort  of  understanding  with  us  and  we  jog 
along  comfortably  enough.  J.  A.  C.  once  defended  fort- 
nightly reports  as  against  monthly  on  the  ground  that  we  are 
always  influenced  by  what  has  come  last,  and  therefore  two 
reports  in  the  month  would  be  fairer  to  a  boy  than  one. 

"  To  return  from  this  digression  to  the  Jesuits.  They 
further  economised  force  by  concentrating  the  attention  of 
their  pupils  on  few  subjects.  Latin  was  the  backbone  of 
their  teaching.  Thoroughness,  repetition,  emulation,  delation 
—  these  were  their  watchwords. 

"The  last  two  introduce  an  interesting  question  of  school 
life.  The  masters  are  and  must  be  the  masters.  The  Jesuits 
seem  to  have  recognised  this  to  some  extent,  for  the  Father 
Confessor  of  each  boy  was,  though  a  Jesuit,  never  a  master 
of  the  school.  One  of  the  great  facts  of  a  boy's'  school  life 
is  that  he  belongs  to  a  body  composed  of  the  boys  of  the 
school,  and  this  body  is  not  only  distinct  from,  but  also  more 
or  less  antagonistic  to,  the  body  made  up  by  the  masters. 
There  is  commonly  the  most  friendly  feeling  between  the 
two  bodies  (I  am  told  there  is  also  between  the  profession 
of  thieves  and  the  police)." 


2IO  i\.  H.  Oiiick 


BOYS   AND    MASTERS 

"  Work  to  boys  cannot  be  made  as  interesting  as  play. 
In  our  efforts  to  make  work  interesting  to  boys  we  must 
remember  that,  even  when  we  are  successful,  we  shall  still 
require  to  use  some  pressure  to  get  our  study  properly  at- 
tended to,  especially  in  preparation.  The  boys  will  like  the 
work,  but  they  will  not  like  it  better  than  play.  I  have  oc- 
casionally proved  this  by  the  following  experiment.  I  have 
been  reading  aloud  something  that  the  boys  liked  to  hear, 
and  they  were  listening  apparently  with  rapt  attention.  The 
play-hour  has  come,  and  I  have  said  :  '  Those  who  wish  can 
leave.  I  will  go  on  reading  and  any  can  stay  who  like.'  I 
have  expected  most  boys  to  stay,  and  perhaps  not  a  boy  has 
done  so.     They  liked  the  book  well,  but  play  better." 


Collective  punishments   and  reprimands 

"  I  have  often  felt  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  reproach  whole 
bodies  of  boys.  A  boy  does  not  feel  culpability  which  he 
shares  with  a  number  of  others,  but  every  individual  of  a 
body  attacked  feels  resentment  and  takes  the  resentment  for 
public  spirit.  Chesterfield's  advice  to  his  son  is  shrewd : 
*  Never  attack  whole  bodies  of  any  kind.  Individuals  forgive 
sometimes,  but  bodies  and  societies  never  do.'  " 


Danger  of  general  punishments 

"  15.  12.  76.  The  other  day  there  was  a  fall-out  between 
two  of  my  boys,  and  of  course  the  school  took  sides  (or  rather 
a  side,  as  generally  happens)  in  the  matter.  Yesterday  the 
bullying  spirit  broke  loose  in  a  disgusting  way.  There  has 
been  an  annoyance  in  the  house   that  I  have  determined  to 


Manner  in   Classroom  2 1 1 

stop,  and  as  speaking  to  the  boys  about  it  had  no  effect,  I 
have  interdicted  football  for  the  present.  Now  these  punish- 
ments of  the  whole  school  have  a  great  danger  in  them. 
The  boys  are  sure  to  settle  on  some  unfortunate,  probably 
a  weak,  unpopular  boy,  who  is  either  innocent  or  not  a  bit 
worse  than  the  rest,  and  wreak  their  vengeance  on  this  victim. 
This  has  happened  in  the  present  instance.  The  boys  waited 
in  a  gang  to  set  upon  one  boy  when  he  came  out.  He  had 
some  notion  of  tliis  and  kept  behind,  so  a  boy  was  sent  to 
entice  him  out.  When  this  failed  they  all  came  back  and 
dragged  him  out  and  the  noise  brought  me  on  the  scene,  so 
I  discovered  what  had  been  going  on." 

Taking  a  boy's  zvoi'd 

"5  May  '77.  The  Spectator  last  Saturday  had  a  letter 
from  Lake  running  down  Arnold's  plan  of  always  taking  a 
boy's  word,  even  when  appearances  were  against  him.  This 
doctrine  he  gibbets  as  the  figment  of  '  imputed  truthfulness.' 
'A  schoolmaster'  (Merriman,  I  afterwards  discovered)  answers 
him  in  to-day's  Spectator.  According  to  him  the  im])Uted 
truthfulness  is  a  mistake  only  when  it  is  a  sham.  AVe  are 
bound  to  give  boys  the  credit  for  speaking  the  truth  unless 
it  is  certain  or,  from  previous  character,  very  probable  that 
they  are  lying.  The  point  is  full  of  interest,  perhaps  of  a 
larger  range  than  the  scholastic.  St  Paul  says,  '  Love  be- 
lieveth  all  things.'  How  far  ought  love  to  sway  the  intellect 
in  weighing  probabilities?" 

Manner  in  Classroom 

"  Young  people  are  very  sensitive  to  manner,  and  their 
teachers,  who  naturally  treat  them  sans  fa^on,  often  do  harm 
by  a  harsh  and  unsympathetic  manner.  It's  all  very  well  to 
say  that  the  teacher  should  always  have  a  kind  manner,  but 


212  R.  H.   Quick 

at  times,  when  one  feels  irritable,  a  kind  manner  seems  im- 
possible, or  at  best  a  piece  of  hypocrisy.  When  one  is  not 
in  the  best  of  spirits  there  is  some  difficulty  in  keeping  order 
without  a  repressive  manner.  Indeed,  a  sympathetic  manner 
draws  out  such  a  flood  of  communications  of  one  kind  and 
another  that  it  seems  dangerous  to  the  discipline  of  the  school- 
room. Then  again,  the  constant  annoyances  of  finding  work 
ill  done  (especially  of  the  '  Please,  Sir,  I've  lost  my  book,' 
and  '  Please,  Sir,  I  could  not  do  my  work  because  I  left  the 
sums  here  when  I  went  home'  &c.  &c.)  are  very  worrying, 
and  one  naturally  shows  annoyance  in  one's  manner.  By 
custom  one  learns  to  avoid  any  breaking  out  of  temper,  but 
the  master  feels  an  undercurrent  of  sulkiness  and  the  boys 
know  this  better  than  he  does." 

A  pragmatical  pupil 

"22  Oct.  '78.  Yesterday  I  was  worried  by  my  friend 
E.  J.'s  incessantly  interfering  about  place-taking  in  class, 
even  when  he  was  not  affected  by  the  change.  Most  people 
don't  trouble  themselves  if  they  are  not  personally  interested, 
and  most  boys  are  ready  to  give  the  class-teacher  credit  for 
being  able  and  willing  to  do  the  right  thing.  But  E.  J.'s 
mind  is  very  restless,  and  he  considers  its  decisions  infallible. 
It  is  rather  hard  to  know  what  to  do  in  a  case  of  this  sort. 
There  is  something  very  irritating  in  constant  intellectual 
opposition  from  a  boy  just  ten  years  old,  and  one  feels  in- 
clined to  break  down  the  outward  show  of  opposition  by 
force ;  but  this  would  only  produce  a  feeling  of  suffering 
from  injustice,  and  the  opposition  would  be  all  the  stronger 
within.  One  might  elaborately  prove  to  him  that  he  was 
mistaken,  but  this  would  take  too  much  time  and  make  him 
seem  of  too  much  importance.  One  has  in  E.  J.  the  rest- 
less, active,  wideawake  mind  which  one  professes  to  desire, 
but  one  wants  to  make  him  understand  what  a  little  way  he 


A   ScJioohnastcr'  s  Manner  2  i  3 

can  see  :  in  otlier  words,  to  teach  him  childhke  humihty, 
and  this,  when  it  does  not  come  by  nature,  one  can  hardly 
teach.  Yesterday  I  said  to  him  :  '  You  evidently  think  you 
can  manage  the  class  better  than  I.  Come  and  see.'  So  I 
made  him  come  to  my  place,  and  I  sat  down  in  his.  This 
produced  a  laugh  against  him,  but  I  don't  expect  it  shook  his 
self-conceit." 

Law-givet'S  should  have  good  memories 

"' Liars  should  have  good  memories,'  so  should  law-givers 
where  there  is  no  lex  scripta.  Schoolmasters  are  apt  to  give 
edicts  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  and  so  to  lay  down  bad, 
impossible,  or  unnecessary  rules.  Rules  of  the  first  kind  the 
law-giver  lets  drop,  those  of  the  second  drop  of  themselves, 
and  those  of  the  last  are  commonly  neglected.  But  the  law- 
giver should  never  give  an  edict  without  thinking  it  over,  and 
he  should  carefully  keep  it  recorded  on  paper  if  he  can't  keep 
it  in  his  head.  If  change  seems  needed,  he  should  announce 
it.  No  harm  is  done  by  repealing,  but  great  harm  by  allowing 
disobedience." 

A  Schoolmaster's  Manner 

"  T.  2.  86.  'There  is  but  one  safe  basis  of  courtesy  in  the 
schoolroom,  and  that  consists  in  a  genuine  love  for  children.' 
C.  W.  Bardeen. 

"This  seems  to  me  the  sort  of  platitude  which  sounds 
well,  but  is  useless.  Nobody  denies  that  love  for  children  is 
the  one  grand  requisite  for  benefiting  them.  But  rudeness 
to  the  young  does  not  spring  from  ill-will  or  even  indiffer- 
ence. One  of  the  most  important  things  in  dealing  with  the 
young  is  manner,  but  if  anyone  thinks  that  because  he  cares 
for  his  pupils  his  manner  will  be  always  kind  to  them,  he 
is  considerably  mistaken.  I  have  known  a  mother  of  even 
more    than   ordinary  lovingness   and  also  more  than  average 


2  14  R.  H.  Quick 

good  temper,  yet,  worn  out  by  her  child's  fretfuhiess,  speak 
rudely  to  it.  If  a  mother's  love  will  not  always  ensure  a 
kind  manner,  most  certainly  no  other  love  will. 

"  Every  young  teacher  who  cares  for  his  pupils  is  at  first 
very  kind  in  his  manner,  and  could  hardly  be  otherwise.  The 
kind  manner  continues  perhaps  when  it  is  no  longer  quite 
'  natural,'  i.e.  it  stands  a  fair  amount  of  strain  ;  l)ut  sooner  or 
later  it  will  give  way.  Nurses  sometimes  tell  a  child  that  it 
would  try  the  temper  of  an  angel,  and  it's  quite  true.  So 
will  a  form  of  boys  at  times,  especially  at  the  close  of  a 
long  day's  work,  carried  on  perhaps  under  very  unfavourable 
conditions  of  space  and  atmosphere.  Perhaps  the  most  ordi- 
nary and  the  easiest  course  is  to  take  refuge  in  an  official 
manner,  a  manner  neither  kind  nor  unkind  but  colourless, 
and  on  that  account  unvarying. 

"  It  often  surprises  friends  who,  having  known  us  '  at 
hone'  (as  schoolboys  say),  come  upon  us  with  pupils,  to 
find  that  our  professional  manner  is  quite  different  from  our 
private  manner.  Well,  those  who  have  spent  much  time  in 
the  schoolroom  know  that  a  somewhat  professional  manner 
can  hardly  be  avoided.  One  thinks  of  the  story  of  the  men 
crying  '  O'  clo'  ! '  We  can't  go  crying  '  Old  clothes  '  all  day 
and  every  day,  and  like  the  mild  Jew  we  may  rejoin  :  '  Just 
you  try  the  experiment  of  schoolroom  for  a  single  day  and 
you  will  find  your  manners  get  abbreviated  like  the  street 
cry.'  But  the  difficult  problem  of  how  to  behave  to  boys 
is  not  solved  by  our  falling  into  or  adopting  a  professional 
manner.  The  manner  is  nothing  but  a  mask.  If  the  boys 
take  it  for  our  foce,  they  think  us  uglier  than  we  really  are. 
If  they  see  it  is  a  mask,  they  mistrust  us  and  wonder  what 
is  behind  it." 

A  Roland  for  an  Oliver 

"  i6.  II.  ^d.  Arthur  Llewelyn  Davies  is  taking  a  form  at 
Eton.     He  says  the  boys  are  very  conversational.     He  is  too 


Binniuohaui  Boys  215 

strung  a  man  to  l)c  humbugged,  I  think,  but  this  phase  of 
his  pupils  looks  to  an  old  hand  rather  doubtful.  He  tells 
me  that  he  scored  off  his  boys  on  one  occasion.  He  came 
in  late  and  a  boy  said,  '  You're  late.  Sir,  that's  not  setting 
us  a  good  example.'  To  whom  Arthur  :  '  You're  quite  right, 
and  you'll  have  to  punish  me  by  keeping  me  here  five  minutes 
over  the  hour.'" 

Birmingham  Boys 

"  16.  2.  80.  When  I  was  at  Birmingham,  Vardy  told  me 
that  he  found  the  physique  of  the  boys  much  weaker  than 
that  of  London  boys.  The  boys  at  Birmingham  must  be 
very  different  to  those  I  have  known.  It  is  easy  to  get 
them  to  work,  but  not  to  play.  I  asked  about  a  lending- 
library  and  found  that  there  was  no  demand  for  '  play- 
books.'  The  boys  seem  to  have  no  imagination,  and  don't 
care  for  fiction.  Vardy  finds  Sir  W.  Scott  little  known  and 
not  procurable  at  the  boys'  homes.  The  other  day  Vardy 
advised  a  boy  to  do  less  school-work  and  to  read  some 
Thickens  or  Thackeray.  The  boy  said  he  was  just  reading 
a  book  of  his  father's  which  he  liked  very  much.  Vardy 
asked  more  about  it  and  discovered  it  was  Moseley  on  the 
Miracksy 


2i6  R.  H.  Quick 

EXAMINATIONS 

Examination  Papers  a  teacher'' s  diary 

"  I  lately  looked  out  all  my  old  examination  papers  to  get 
them  bound  up.  I  then  saw  how  much  one  might  make  of 
one's  own  examination  papers.  One's  practice  has  been  too 
much  to  set  them  in  a  hurry  and  at  random.  The  right 
plan  is  to  have  settled  types  of  questions  and  to  take  notes 
of  suitable  questions  under  each  head  as  one  goes  on  studying 
the  subject.  As  it  is,  I  find  that  examination  papers  give  me 
a  kind  of  sketch,  though  imperfect,  of  what  my  teaching  has 
been  and  of  the  things  I  have  chiefly  dwelt  upon,  and  thus 
they  form  a  sort  of  autobiography  or  journal." 

Futility  of  Competitive  Examinations 

"  I  have  been  looking  at  two  papers  headed  '  Civil  Service 
Examination.  History  and  Philosophy  of  Education.'  If  the 
object  of  the  examination  is  simply  to  find  out  whether  the 
examined  know  anything  of  the  subject,  then  such  papers 
may  do  well  enough,  but  when  the  examined  must  be  placed 
'in  order  of  merit,'  the  whole  thing  becomes  a  sham.  I  have 
spent  many  years  in  studying  the  history  of  education  (more 
years  than  most  of  these  examinees  have  spent  months),  but 
I  could  not  do  at  all  well  in  the  papers  set.  I  have  not  the 
knowledge  in  the  right  form  for  scoring  marks  in  a  three- 
hours  paper." 

T/ieory  of  Examinations 

"There  seems  some  difficulty  about  the  Elementary 
Scholarships  at  Liverpool,  for  which  I  have  just  been  setting 
papers.  The  object,  as  I  understand  it,  is  to  find  out  the 
cleverest  boys.     But  the  examination  is  to  be  in  certain  fixed 


Examination  Papers  1 1 7 

subjects,  and  when  I  go  with  my  papers  to  Abbott  he  tells 
me  that  these  are  not  fair  papers  in  the  subjects,  for  you 
want  to  find  out  whether  the  subjects  have  been  well  taught. 
Now  here  is  an  entirely  new  object  given  for  the  examina- 
tion. My  object  is  to  find  out  who  is  capable  of  learning, 
Abbott's  object  is  to  find  out  who  has  learnt.  But  some 
one  might  say  there  is  no  practical  difference,  for  the  boy 
who  has  learnt  best  in  the  past  will  be  most  capable  of 
learning  in  the  future.  But  this  is  not  a  right  assumption. 
It  would  not  be  right  if  the  boys  had  been  all  under  one 
master,  for  the  having  learnt  proves  only  fair  industry  and 
intelligence  and  fair  carrying  power.  These  are  good  things 
in  their  way,  but  a  fair  examination  in  the  subjects  might 
leave  the  geniuses  quite  unnoticed.  And  these  difficulties 
are  much  increased  when  the  boys  have  been  under  different 
masters.  A  fair  examination  in  the  subjects  thus  becomes 
an  examination  of  the  masters  rather  than  of  the  boys.  And 
directly  Scripture,  Geography,  History  are  studied  for  exami- 
nation they  are  at  once  ruined  for  Education.  Examination 
in  these  subjects  seems  to  me  based  on  an  enormous  fallacy. 
Everybody  who  has  read  his  Bible  properly  knows  who  was 
the  father  of  the  twelve  patriarchs,  who  succeeded  Solomon 
&:c.  &c.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  this  ;  but  its  converse 
may  be  by  no  means  true,  and  yet  the  examination  system 
assumes  the  converse,  viz.  that  if  a  person  knows  these  facts 
he  has  read  his  Bible  properly." 


A  symposium  on  Examination  Papers 

"  12  Ap.  '78.  Last  week  I  had  the  London  U.  U.'  dinner 
here,  and  a  discussion  on  examination  papers.  Storr  was 
strongly  opposed  to  irresponsible  examining  and  thought  all 
sorts  of    injustice    arose    from    the    carelessness  of  untrained 

'  A  small  debating  society  of  London  schoolmasters. 


2iS  R.  H.  Quick 

examiners  when  left  to  themselves.  Abbott  said  we  had  to 
consider  two  things,  (i)  How  we  should  examine  our  own 
boys.  (2)  How  we  should  wish  our  boys  to  be  examined 
by  outsiders.  He  said  far  too  much  time  was  lost  in  the 
attempt  to  secure  perfect  accuracy.  A  good  deal  should  be 
left  to  the  examiner's  impressions.  One  thing  the  examina- 
tion should  test  is  judgment.  If  a  boy  spends  half  the  time 
allowed  for  the  paper  in  doing  one  or  two  of  ten  questions, 
he  ought  not  to  be  marked  high,  for  he  must  be  a  silly 
person.  The  plan  of  putting  marks  to  questions  may  be  a 
guide  to  the  fulness  with  which  questions  should  be  an- 
swered. Abbott  then  described  a  plan  by  which  he  ex- 
amines 100  boys  in  three  hours.  He  reads  out  a  number  of 
questions  admitting  of  definite  answers,  —  e.g.  Put  into  Latin 
'  I  have  the  book  my  brother  gave  me.'  The  boys  must  write 
at  once  and  no  correction  is  allowed.  Then  boys  change 
papers  and  correct  as  the  master  dictates.  Papers  are  handed 
back  to  the  writer  and  appeals  are  allowed.  The  examiner 
takes  the  marks  as  the  boys  give  them  in.  Most  of  Abbott's 
viva  voce  sentences  are  catches,  and  he  asks  '  Hands  up  those 
who  have  got  so  and  so.'  Thus  he  sees  at  a  glance  whether 
the  form  generally  is  in  a  good  or  bad  state.  Abbott  has  a 
great  notion  of  viva  voce  examination. 

"  George  Warr  started  the  notion  of  marking  difficulties 
only  and  cutting  the  rest  of  the  paper.  This,  he  said,  was 
the  best  plan  in  examining  low  standards.  Hallam  protested 
against  this  plan  as  lazy  and  unfair.  Everybody  agreed  that 
the  papers  should  be  looked  over  laterally,  not  vertically." 

An  Examination  Paper  in  set  books 

"14  June  '80.  I  have  read  Locke  and  Arnold  and  made 
up  questions  as  I  read.  This  gives  one  a  great  choice  of 
questions,  and  is  the  best  way  of  making  a  paper.  Of  course 
one  asks  about  important  points  only,  so  that  these  questions 


Exam  in  (if  ion  Papers  2 1 9 

are  equivalent  to  notes  of  one's  reading.  The  rest  of  tlie  sub- 
ject I  have  never  studied  with  a  view  to  questions,  so  those  I 
have  asked  were  not  altogether  satisfoctory. 

"  I  have  this  morning  gone  to  work  and  answered  the 
paper  (a  three  hours'  paper)  in  just  over  two  hours  and  a  half. 
I  think  every  examiner  should  do  this  with  important  papers. 
I'm  afraid  the  paper  is  somewhat  too  hard.  What  I  foimd 
was  this  :  when  a  definite  piece  of  knowledge  is  wanted,  it 
can  be  given  straight  away  ;  but  if  the  question  needs  thought, 
it  is  a  much  less  fair  test.  Of  course  the  questions  were  to 
some  extent  thoughts  of  my  own,  so  sometimes  I  could  re- 
produce my  thoughts,  thus  having  an  unfair  advantage  ;  but 
when  I  had  set  questions  without  thinking  out  an  answer,  I 
found  that  I  wanted  more  time  than  that  allowed,  and  the 
least  attempt  to  hurry  thought  stops  thought  altogether,  mine 
at  least,  which  goes  along  like  a  snail,  and  like  a  snail  shuts 
up  if  I  give  it  a  push.  I  shrewdly  suspect  that,  if  I  had  to 
mark  the  answers  to  my  own  paper,  I  should  not  give  full 
marks  or  anything  like  full  marks  to  several  of  my  answers. 
In  the  information  questions  the  candidates  will  perhaps  do 
better  than  I  have  done.  This  might  easily  happen.  I  set 
things  they  ought  to  know  only  on  the  assumption  that  they 
have  prepared  the  subject  for  examination.  E.g.  I  ask,  '  What 
are  the  chief  recommendations  Luther  gives  in  his  "  Letter  to 
the  Town-Councillors  of  Germany  "  ? '  Now  I  have  read  this 
letter,  but  haven't  got  it  up.  If  I  had  been  reading  for  ex- 
amination, I  should  have  taken  an  epitome  of  the  letter  and 
got  it  up  ;  so  the  candidates  may  do  better  than  I.  Indeed, 
I  shall  have  to  read  the  letter  again  to  see  I  have  missed  no 
point.   .  .  . 

"This  question  touches  a  vital  point  in  the  subject.  Ex- 
aminers often  ask  about  unimportant  things  from  a  notion 
that  if  unimportant  things  are  known,  important  things  must 
be  known  a  fortiori.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  asking  about 
trifles  tends  to  encourage  the  wrong  kind  of  study.     In  studying 


2  20  R.  H.  Quick 

we  want  to  fasten  on   the  important  things  and  to  forget  the  iin- 
iijiporhiiitr 

Camhriitge  Teaehcrs'  Examination 

"  28.  6.  80.  On  Saturday  night  I  looked  over  some  of  the 
Advanced  ([uestions.  The  first  question  was  :  '  Education 
should  be  according  to  Nature.  Wiiich  Reformers  insisted 
on  this,  and  what  did  they  mean  in  each  case  ?'  The  an- 
swers are  mostly  very  limp.  The  poor  girls  seem  to  think 
they  will  be  passed  for  much  writing,  but  their  verbiage  only 
shows  that  they  are  in  a  fog.  Most  of  them  simply  try  to 
reproduce  what  they  have  read,  and  think  it  must  be  right 
if  it  is  like  the  book.  One  candidate,  giving  Locke  as  an 
advocate  of  education  according  to  Nature,  tells  me  that  he 
brought  up  two  Earls  of  Shaftesbury.  Looking  through  these 
papers  is  sickening  work.  All  the  candidates  seem  to  have 
caught  at  the  same  7cior(/s  and  to  use  them  without  meaning. 
Poor  girls  !  they  have  taken  great  pains  to  get  up  lists  of 
names.  Apropos  of  Nature,  I  am  told  that  Froebel  main- 
tained there  were  instincts,  '  those  of  activity,  agriculture, 
transformation,  sociability  and  religion.'  As  I  get  this  list 
more  than  once,  I  suppose  it  comes  from  some  book  or  lec- 
ture. I  am  rather  puzzled  by  this  new  use  of  words.  Perhaps 
this  list  is  itself  an  '  instinct '  ;  it  is  certainly  a  '  curiosity.'  How 
is  one  to  mark  an  answer  which  begins  '  Comenius  planted 
the  standard  of  education  a  step  further  into  the  realm  of 
Nature  '  ? 

"  For  the  most  part  I  looked  over  the  papers  question  by 
question,  the  only  fair  plan,  but  when  the  numbers  are  great 
the  waste  of  time  in  sorting  and  changing  papers  is  a  serious 
drawback. 

"  It  must  make  a  good  deal  of  difference  to  candidates 
which  plan  is  adopted.  If  one  looks  straight  on,  one's 
marking   is    affected    by   impressions   made   in   previous   an- 


Cambridge   Teachers    Exaiuiuations      221 

swers.  One  gets  a  notion  say  —  this  is  an  intelligent  person 
—  and  the  words  which  in  themselves  are  ambiguous  are  sup- 
posed to  mean  the  right  thing.  Or  perhaps  one  is  disgusted 
by  some  bad  blunder,  and  one  then  takes  a  depreciatory  view 
to  the  end.  So  the  candidate  in  this  case  should  be  careful 
to  put  down  nothing  but  what  he  is  certain  of.  In  the  other 
method  one  rarely  has  any  notion  of  the  person  whose  an- 
swer one  is  reading,  so  a  candidate  can  take  shots  with  im- 
punity. As  very  few  examiners  give  negative  marks,  it  often 
pays  to  answer  every  question  somehow  rather  than  to  give 
more  careful  and  better  answers  to  a  few  questions.  Of 
course  if  the  examiner  makes,  as  I  have,  a  list  of  the  ques- 
tions with  the  marks  each  candidate  has  got  for  each,  he 
sees  how  the  marks  have  been  obtained,  and  he  may  for  a 
pass  allow  a  few  good  answers  to  have  more  value  than  a 
greater  number  scraped  together  from  many  questions  ;  but 
when  the  numbers  examined  are  large  each  stands  or  falls,  I 
fancy,  by  his  total.  As  to  brevity,  of  course  it  is  a  great 
mistake  to  put  down  anything  irrelevant.  It  disgusts  the 
examiner,  and  in  effect  gets  a  negative  mark.  But  on  the 
other  hand  I  am  not  sure  that  brevity  pays  as  well  as  it 
ought  to  pay.  The  examiner  has  some  difficulty  in  believing 
that  a  question  answered  briefly  is  answered  fully.  To  con- 
sider the  point  and  to  weigh  the  force  of  every  word  would 
require  more  time  than  he  can  afford,  so  he  is  tempted  to 
cut  down  the  marks.  So  if  the  answer  is  fairly  sensible,  the 
examiner  is  apt  to  mark  partly  for  its  length." 

Cambridge  Teachers*  Examination  anszvers 

"2  July  '81.  I  think  there  is  a  better  set  in  this  year 
than  last,  but  the  Advanced  Question  was  poorly  done.  Of 
those  who  took  '  The  growth  of  schools  for  the  people  from 
the  Reformation  to  our  own  day,'  only  one  spoke  of  Scotland 
and  John  Knox. 


2  22  R.  H.  Quick 

"  I  have  just  finished  looking  over  the  question  on 
Ascham's  method  of  teaching  a  foreign  language.  I  am 
very  weary  of  the  same  thing,  often  the  same  words,  coming 
over  and  over.  They  remember  details,  but  don't  catch  the 
important  point.  Most  take  Ratich  to  compare  with  Ascham, 
but  they  don't  observe  the  difference  —  that  a  page  would  take 
A.'s  pupils  a  long  time  to  get  over,  while  the  pupils  of  R. 
were  rushed  through  the  book  straight  on  end  before  they  read 
the  beginning  a  second  time.  I  ask  for  a  comparison  of  tiie 
curriculum  planned  by  Sturm  for  the  Strassburg  Gymnasium 
and  that  of  our  public  schools,  and  I  find  that  many  have 
crammed  up  (I  suppose  from  Barnard)  all  the  work  set  by 
Sturm  for  his  ten  classes.  They  have  gone  through  all  this 
wretched  unprofitable  grind,  yet  most  miss  the  essential  point 
that  Sturm  sought  to  revive  Latin  as  a  language  for  modern 
eloquence.  Any  amount  of  memory  work,  but  no  thought. 
As  I  go  on  looking  over  papers  I  get  to  doubt  whether  this 
is  a  good  subject  for  examining  in. 

"  An  odd  thing  cropped  up  at  the  examiners'  meeting. 
We  were  told  to  make  loo  the  maximum  for  each  paper, 
but  nothing  was  said  as  to  the  number  of  marks  for  a  pass. 
The  notion  in  my  mind  had  been  that  half  marks  were  the 
minimum,  but  the  other  examiners  had  thought  of  a  third.  So 
our  marks  really  meant  quite  different  things." 

Looking  over  Froebel  Society  Examination  Papers 

"  17.  8.  8i.  I  have  remarked  before  that  the  setter  of  a 
paper  should  always  work  out  his  own  paper  and  time  himself. 
He  will  often  find  himself  puzzled  to  answer  his  own  questions 
so  as  to  obtain  full  marks,  and  possibly  he  will  find  that  even 
he  has  not  thought  the  matter  out  so  as  to  be  able  to  give  a 
neat  and  condensed  answer.  Hence  he  will  often  modify  and 
improve  his  paper.  But  even  then  he  will  be  unconscious  of 
the  defects  that  become  conspicuous  enough  directly  he  begins 


Cambridge   Teachers    Examijiations      223 

to  look  at  the  answers  of  others.  Generally  speaking,  he  will 
find  that  the  question  opens  a  larger  area  than  he  intended  ; 
sometimes  that  it  admits  of  some  simple  answer  that  really 
misses  or  eludes  the  point  he  had  in  his  mind." 


Examinations  a  game  at  ecarte 

"  Examination  is  like  a  game  at  ecarte.  The  examiner 
leads  off  and  we  look  into  our  hand  to  find  a  card  by 
which  we  may  win  the  trick.  It  is  a  game  of  skill  and- 
chance  combined,  and  our  success  depends  chiefly,  no  doubt, 
on  our  hands,  but  also  in  part  on  our  play.  Whatever  the 
result,  however,  the  cards  are  done  with  when  the  game  is 
played  out,  and  we  never  trouble  ourselves  to  remember 
them." 

Exatninations  prevent  thinking 

"I  am  to-day  (10.  5.  ^t,)  analysing  my  lecture  on 
Montaigne.  He  is  of  course  strong  against  second-hand  in- 
formation and  our  use  of  other  people's  judgments.  I  wish 
the  present  generation  would  listen  to  him,  but  the  exami- 
nation craze  gives  preponderance  to  mere  memory  work. 
J.  R.  Seeley  told  me  the  other  day  that  he  found  examiners 
were  mostly  intolerant  of  any  but  received  opinions.  They 
gave  more  marks  for  what  men  had  got  out  of  books  than 
for  any  crude  notions  of  their  own.  Lately  a  candidate  in 
the  History  Tripos  gave  expression  to  his  own  thoughts  in- 
stead of  repeating  the  conventional  judgments  of  historians. 
The  examiners  were  quite  put  out,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  Seeley,  wanted  to  give  him  a  very  low  place." 

A  modern  MangnalP s  Questions 

"  2.  4.  89.  The  Comprehensive  Examiner,  by  David  Clark, 
Headmaster  of  Board  School,  Dudley  (Blackie). 


2  24  ^-  ^^-   Q^^ick 

"  No  doubt  our  Board  Schools  are  now  like  our  middle- 
class  schools,  turning  out  young  people  '  very  widely  misin- 
formed,' and  these  examination  papers  would  suit  them  to 
a  t,  but  it  seems  to  me  the  height  of  folly  to  cram  children 
with  totally  uninteresting  and  lifeless  information.  I  look 
through  these  papers  and  find  none  that  I  could  floor  after 
working  in  the  schoolroom  as  boy  and  man  for  fifty  years. 
'  By  how  many  people  is  the  English  language  now  probably 
spoken?'  'Who  was  Aristotle,  and  what  did  he  say  of  the 
British  Islands?'  I  don't  know  what  Aristotle  said  about 
the  British  Islands,  and  as  his  knowledge  of  them  was  about 
the  same  as  the  young  Briton's  knowledge  of  him  now  is, 
what  he  said  is  not  of  much  consequence.  '  What  may  we 
learn  from  the  volcanic  appearance  of  the  Moon?'  Is  this 
geography?" 


Comments  07i  an  Examination  Paper  on  Shakspere 

[Merchant  of  Venice 

Introductory  Paper 

1.  Why  should  Shakspere  have  chosen  this  name?    Whom 
do  you  consider  the  principal  character  in  the  play? 

2.  Antonio.     '  In  sooth  I  know  not  why  I  am  so  sad.' 
Romeo.     '  My  bosom's  lord  sits  lightly  in  his  throne.' 

Compare  these  two  lines,  and  show  how  Shakspere  gener- 
ally treats  omens  and  presentiments. 

3.  State  what  you  know  of  the  two  stories  combined  in 
this  play. 

4.  With  what  names  in  English  Literature  is  Venice  con- 
nected? 

5.  Discuss  Shakspere's  treatment  of  the  Jewish  character. 
Sketch  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  England. 


All  Examination  Paper  in  Shakspere    225 

6.  "  It  's  against  nature  for  money  to  beget  money." 

Bacon. 
Illustrate  from  this  play,  and  account  for  the  prejudice  of 
Shakspere's  time  against  money-lenders. 

7.  To  what  period  of  Shakspere's  life  does  this  play  be- 
long?    Note  any  inconsistencies,  and  account  for  them. 

8.  '  The  Merchant  of  Venice  is  a  merchant  of  no  other 
city  in  the  world.'     Illustrate. 

g.     Why  should  the  play  be  called  a  comedy  rather  than  a 
tragedy?     Point  out  any  comic  scenes  in  Shakspere's  tragedies.] 


"  It  is  most  important  to  get  some  improvement  in  the  art 
of  examining.  Butler  says  that  the  entrance  examinations  at 
Harrow  have  tremendous  effect  on  Preparatory  Schools.  No 
doubt.  And  the  examiner  always  has  a  great  effect  on  the 
teaching.  He,  in  fact,  in  the  end  directs  what  is  to  be 
specially  observed  and  dwelt  upon.  Therefore  the  examiner 
should  be  very  careful  in  using  his  power,  and  all  random 
questioning  is  pernicious.  The  great  thing  he  should  ask 
himself  about  every  question  is :  Is  this  a  good  kind  of 
question?  Will  it  lead  to  the  observing  of  the  right  kind 
of  thing?  And  he  should  have  his  types  of  questions  settled 
before  he  goes  to  work  to  set  a  paper.  He  will  then  work 
more  easily  and  with  much  better  result  than  if  he  puts  down 
just  the  questions  that  come  into  his  head. 

"  I  look  at  an  Oxford  Local  in  the  Scholastic  Register  for 
March  '78  (whether  Senior  or  Junior  is  not  stated).  In  the 
Introductory  Paper  on  the  '  Merchant  of  Venice'  (time  about 
\\  hours)  there  are  nine  questions.^ 

"  What  answer  the  man  expects  to  the  first  part  of  the 
first  question  I  can't  imagine.     It  would  be  as  reasonable,  as 

^  The  University  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  paper  criticised.     It  was 
set  as  a  help  to  candidates  preparing  for  the  Oxford  Locals,  and  the  foolish 
examiner  here  hung  and  quartered  (the  truth  will  out)  was  myself. 
Q 


2  26  R.  H.  Quick 

far  as  I  can  make  out,  to  ask  :  Why  was  Shakspere  called 
William?  The  second  part  of  the  question  is  good,  but  it 
would  be  better  if  it  were  not  answerable  by  a  single  word. 
One  boy  would  say  '  Antonio,'  another  '  Shylock,'  a  third 
'  Portia.'  Should  they  not  be  asked  to  give  some  account 
of  the  selected  character  throughout  the  play? 

"  Question  2  might  be  a  good  subject  for  an  essay  to 
be  written  by  undergraduates,  who  could  consult  their 
Shakspere  and  spend  a  week  about  it.  In  its  position  here 
it  is  ridiculous. 

"  Question  3  requires  information  which  would  be  posi- 
tively harmful  to  the  young  student  of  the  play.  You  might 
as  well  try  to  make  your  pupils  appreciate  Turner's  pictures 
by  giving  them  information  about  his  use  of  cobalt,  burnt 
sienna  &c.  Nay,  this,  if  equally  absurd,  would  be  less  harm- 
ful, for  your  pupils  would  of  course  ignore  all  this  informa- 
tion when  they  looked  at  the  pictures.  But  when  you  have 
insisted  on  their  studying  Shaksperian  raw  materials,  you  have 
done  all  you  can  to  spoil  his  plays  for  them.  An  adult  critic 
may  no  doubt  find  pleasure  in  observing  the  exquisite  art  with 
which  the  materials  are  worked  up,  but  this  sort  of  pleasure 
is  impossible  before  the  critical  faculties  are  developed.  The 
only  result  of  their  cramming  the  two  stories  will  be  to  turn 
the  play  inside  out,  so  to  speak,  and  show  all  the  stitches 
instead  of  the  effect  the  author  meant  to  produce.  Unless 
the  young  student  has  the  art  of  forgetting  which  Themistocles 
longed  for,  he  will  no  longer  be  able  to  look  at  the  play  as 
a  whole,  but  will  constantly  be  thinking  whether  he  is  listening 
to  one  story  or  another. 

"  Question  4  is  quite  absurd  as  a  question  to  young 
people.  If  they  have  an  answer  for  it,  it  must  be  a 
crammed  answer. 

"The  same  is  true  of  question  5.  A  history  of  the  Jews 
in  England  in  the  eighteenth  part  of  \\  hours  !  It  ought 
therefore  to  be  written  in  five  minutes  ! " 


ThougJit  and  Words  227 


*  Savoir  par  cmir  n^est  pas  savoir 

"  This  I  take  to  mean  that  when  a  thought  has  thoroughly 
entered  the  mind,  it  shakes  off  the  words  by  which  it  was 
conveyed  thither.  Therefore,  so  long  as  the  words  are  indis- 
pensable, the  thought  is  not  known.  All  examiners  are  rightly 
suspicious  of  answers  '  in  the  words  of  the  book.' 

"  A  friend  of  mine  at  Cambridge  took  down  Sir  James 
Stephen's  lectures  on  history,  and  as  the  paper  set  after- 
wards was  on  the  subject  of  the  lectures,  he  gave  Sir  James 
pretty  well  his  own  words  back  again.  What  answers,  he 
tliought,  could  be  more  satisfactory?  But  Sir  James  took  a 
different  view.  My  friend  got  no  distinguishing  mark  for 
history,  and  accordingly  went  to  Sir  James  and  complained. 
Sir  James  admitted  that  all  his  answers  had  been  right,  and 
that  he  had  been  obliged  to  give  him  high  marks,  but  he 
had  thought  him  unworthy  of  distinction  because  '  he  showed 
no  knowledge  of  history.'  This  was  an  odd  case.  The  ex- 
aminer asks  a  question  and  gets  a  perfectly  satisfactory  answer, 
yet  he  refuses  to  recognise  it  as  a  good  answer  because  he 
himself  furnished  it,  and  so  it  gave  no  proof  that  the  examinee 
had  learnt  from  other  sources.  I  think  my  friend  might  have 
maintained  that  the  examiner,  having  got  all  he  asked  for, 
should  have  given  all  he  could  give,  and  that  the  examinee, 
in  showing  thorough  knowledge  of  the  lectures,  had  not  shown 
ignorance  of  history  unless  the  lectures  were  wrong.^  So  with 
the  savoir  par  coeur ;  if  the  words  are  right  words,  the  mind 
may  have  the  thought  and  the  words  too.  There  are  cases 
in  which  the    thought   inevitably   suggests    the  words,  which, 

^  The  examiner  was  clearly  right  in  refusing  honours  to  a  candidate 
who  showed  no  proof  of  original  thought  or  reading,  and,  like  the  un- 
profitable servant  in  the  paralile,  paid  the  lecturer  back  in  his  own  coin 
without  interest.  R.  H.  Q.  is,  perhaps  consciously,  playing  the  advocatus 
diaboli. 


2  28  J^.  H.  Quick 

if  they  did  not  convey  it,  still  seem  to  give  it  the  aptest 
expression.  E.g.  when  one  feels  how  powerless  external 
things  are  in  themselves  to  affect  us,  one  hears  a  voice  within 

saying  : 

'  We  may  not  hope  from  outward  forms  to  win 
The  power  and  the  Hfe  whose  fountains  are  within.' 

And  when  one  thinks  of  the  bloodshed  we  see  among  animals, 
the  voice  says :  '  Nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw  with  ravin.' 

"  Proverbs,  too,  are  an  instance  of  the  tendency  to  link 
a  particular  thought  to  a  particular  mode  of  expression. 
Thoughts  that  are  part  of  the  mind  must  then  be  independent 
of  any  special  form  of  utterance,  but  they  may,  and  often  do, 
ally  themselves  with  special  forms." 

Work  for  small  boys  must  be  easy 

"  The  great  secret  of  success  with  small  boys  is  to  keep 
the  work  very  easy,  go  forward  very  slowly,  and  give  the 
boys  plenty  to  do  under  the  master's  eye.  With  older  boys, 
if  they  find  the  work  easy,  they  are  sure  to  despise  it  and  do 
it  ill.  I  lately  began  the  exercises  in  the  'Grammaire  des 
Grammaires'  with  some  boys,  one  of  whom  (a  painstaking 
lad)  had  done  a  good  deal  of  French,  while  most  of  the 
others  had  done  little  or  none.  This  boy's  exercises  were 
nearly  the  worst  of  the  lot.  But  small  boys  at  the  least 
difficulty  throw  up  the  sponge,  and  the  chief  difficulty  in 
teaching  them  is  to  find  subject-matter  easy  enough  and  to 
work  it  long  enough." 

School  wrinkles,     (i)    A  spelling  match 

"  I  gave  the  sides  some  time  to  i)repare  lists.  P>ach  boy 
had  to  bring  a  column  of  20  words  (the  words  should  be 
numbered),  and  then  I  asked  the  head  of  one  side  the  first 


School  Wrinkles  229 

word  of  his  aemiilus  and  vice  versa.  This  I  kept  on  till  one 
was  floored,  when  I  went  on  to  the  second  pair,  and  so  on. 
The  words  had  to  be  selected  from  certain  pages  of  Southey's 
Nelson:' 

(2)     Piinishnients 

"  Abbott  told  me  his  plan  for  making  boys  register  their 
own  punishments.  If  he  sets  a  boy  such  and  such  a  task 
for  such  and  such  a  day,  he  asks  for  a  cheque  from  the 
boy  and  the  boy  at  once  giv^es  up  a  piece  of  paper  with 
the  amount  due  written  on  it  and  his  name.  These  are 
filed,  and  it  is  the  boy's  business  to  see  the  cheque  torn 
up  when  the  task  is  given  in.  The  great  advantage  of  the 
plan  is  that  the  boy  can  never  say  he  did  not  understand, 
and  the  master  is  relieved  from  all  trouble  in  demanding 
the  task." 

(3)     Neatness 

"  Another  plan  of  Abbott's  is  to  make  boys  write  '  Marks 
for  neatness '  at  the  top  of  all  their  exercises,  and  these  marks 
are  awarded  first.  If  a  boy  fails  to  get  any  marks  for  neat- 
ness, that  exercise  cannot  score.  The  great  benefit  of  this 
is  that  it  keeps  neatness  always  in  the  minds  both  of  boys 
and  masters." 

Repetition  of  Poetry 

"  About  repeating  with  good  emphasis,  &c.,  the  boys  will 
never  go  right  without  some  leading.  They  should  not  get 
their  first  impressions  from  the  book.  When  a  piece  has 
been  chosen  for  learning,  the  teacher  might  read  it  to  the 
class  every  day  for  the  week  previous  to  their  setting  to 
work  upon  it.  He  might  ask  questions  about  its  meaning, 
the  words,  allusions,  &c.,  and  after  the  first  time  or  two  try 
to  examine  in  it  by  eUipses  (stopping  and  asking  next  word 


230  7?.  H.   Quick 

or  line),  which  would  test  the  attention  of  the  class.  In  the 
same  way  the  master  may  test  how  far  pieces  already  learned 
have  been  retained  by  reading  them  over  and  caUing  on  boy 
after  boy  to  go  on  whenever  he  makes  a  stop." 

The  danger  of  teaching  too  high 

"19  April  '77.  There  are  all  sorts  of  pitfalls  in  the 
teacher's  way,  and  unless  he  has  crystallised  into  a  routinist 
and  so  attained  to  a  '  repose  which  ever  is  the  same,'  he 
must  be  constantly  on  the  lookout  or  he  will  tumble.  The 
most  persistently  besetting  sin  of  the  teacher  who  likes  his 
work  is  the  danger  of  teaching  what  interests  him,  though 
the  subject,  or  rather  that  phase  of  the  subject,  is  not  the 
most  suitable  for  his  pupils. 

"  As  I  have  two  or  three  very  intelligent  boys,  I  am  now 
much  tempted  in  this  direction.  The  boys  are  of  a  very 
inquiring  turn  of  mind,  and  I  am  very  anxious  to  exercise 
their  intelligence.  Consequently  I  am  apt  to  break  through 
into  parts  of  subjects  which  interest  me  and  which  are  very 
clear  to  me,  but  which  can  hardly  be  taken  in  without  more 
training  and  greater  grasp  of  mind  than  boys  possess. 

"  In  Arithmetic  all  but  two  understand  much  that  no  other 
boys  of  their  age  ever  hear  of.  They  not  only  are  great  in 
factors,  multiples,  &c.,  but  they  are  famihar  with  powers,  in- 
dices, minus  quantities  and  brackets.  They  take  these  things 
in  very  well,  but  of  course  there  is  great  danger  of  their  getting 
muddled,  and  when  the  teaching  has  not  been  properly  ar- 
ranged in  a  system  beforehand,  there  may  be  here  and  there 
lacunae  which  might  give  difficulty  later  on.  The  ordinary 
school  plan  of  giving  the  '  rule '  with,  or  more  commonly 
without,  explanation,  and  then  setting  a  lot  of  examples  as 
like  as  Dutch  cheeses,  does  nothing  for  the  intelligence,  and 
if  the  question  in  examination  is  not  set  quite  under  one  of 
the   book   categories,  the  boys  are  floored.     Still  I  expect  I 


Elementary  Latin  231 

push  matters  too  far  the  other  way.  I  have  been  working 
vulgar  fractions  for  some  weeks  now.  I  keep  my  boys  to 
fractions  with  one  denominator  for  a  long  time,  and  try  to 
get  the  conception  of  the  fraction  old  and  famihar  to  them 
before  I  introduce  them  to  the  Protean  stage.  Perhaps  one 
might  convince  them  that  |  =  |^  as  follows  : 

3   —   9    *-'^    31313   —   9T9'9"*3  9*-3  9- 

"  But  boys  don't  care  about  reasoning  on  such  things. 
They  like  rather  to  feel  than  to  see  the  thing  is  so.  I  want 
them  to  get  familiar  with  the  fraction  before  I  play  tricks 
with  it.  I  prefer  their  leaving  the  factors  as  if  they  were 
letters,  not  figures.  The  eye  then  sees  the  truth,  and  that  is 
a  great  help." 

Teachiiig  of  elementary  Lafifi 

"3  Apr.  '77.  After  all,  I  find  that  now  I  have  a  chance 
of  teaching  what  I  like,  I  settle  down  pretty  much  on  the 
old  lines.  The  staple  of  the  instruction  is  Latin  and  Arith- 
metic. Latin  somehow,  wherever  it  is  introduced,  gets  the 
lion's  share  of  attention.  Last  week  I  took  the  lower  divi- 
sion. What  struck  me  was  the  extreme  difficulty  of  the 
language  and  the  terrible  amount  of  time  it  takes  to  get 
anything  done  at- all  perfecdy.  The  boys  learn  fast  enough 
to  run  off  sum  es  est,  amo  amas,  &c.,  but  when  one  asks  the 
Latin  for  'you  have  been,'  'they  were  loving,'  'he  is  loved,' 
answers  come  very  slowly  and  a  tremendous  expenditure 
of  time  is  needed  to  get  these  things  producible  with  any 
fluency.  Marcel,  Hamilton  and  Co.  would  doubtless  say 
that  an  impressional  course  should  precede  any  attempt  at 
expression  in  Latin,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  if  the  boys  are 
not  capable  of  expression  to  the  extent  of  '  we  were  ruHng,' 
'  he  is  loved,'  they  really  don't  feel  the  inflection  at  all,  and 
impression  alone  cannot  give  this  feeling.  There  must  seem 
to   them   a   purely  arbitrary  connection   between   each   Latin 


232  R.  H.   Quick 

word  and  the  Englisli  they  are  taught  to  give  for  it.  Tn  the 
ui)per  division  the  brains  do  work  rather  faster,  and  I  try 
to  make  the  Latin  (Woodford's  Caesar^  living  to  them  by 
making  them  construe  without  book  as  I  read,  and  also  by 
giving  the  variations  both  for  written  and  viva  voce  exercises. 
I  also  call  attention  to  the  clauses,  &c.,  and  hear  the  back 
vocabularies.  My  boys  do  learn  some  Latin,  but  slowly, 
slowly.  They  will  have  spent  a. year  with  me  over  Woodford, 
and  will  not  know  the  book  at  all  thoroughly  then." 

"  13  June  '77.  My  boys  don't  get  on  so  fast  as  I  should 
expect  with  the  Caesar  (Woodford).  Unless  one  keeps  on 
asking  the  back  vocabularies,  they  are  forgotten.  There  is 
nothing  like  retranslation  for  impressing  the  words,  idioms,  &c. 
on  the  memory,  but  all  this  takes  so  long.  The  Latin  lesson 
never  flags,  and  the  boys  seem  interested  in  it.  If  I  could 
find  time  they  should  always  read  aloud  some  of  the  back 
chapters  without  construing.  One  could  tell,  partly  by  the 
reading,  partly  by  a  question  or  two,  whether  they  under- 
stood. I  sometimes  read  a  back  chapter  to  them.  I  want 
them  to  feel  the  Latin  and  find  it  a  means  of  conveying 
thought,  and  not  merely  a  collection  of  words  for  parsing  or 
an  equivalent  for  so  many  English  words.  Yesterday  I  tried 
all  the  boys  together  in  a  drill  in  verbs.  When  I  asked  such 
questions  as  '  they  had  loved,'  Jackson  asked  piteously  what 
tense  it  was,  and  they  were  much  more  ready  with  the  present 
participle  of  rego  than  with  the  Latin  for  '  ruling.' 

"  To  give  some  notion  of  Latin  as  a  means  of  communi- 
cating thought,  I  have  made  up  sentences  about  the  war  in 
the  East.  Turci  non  habent  eundem  imperatorem  quem  ha- 
bebant.  Imperator  quem  habebant  Mehemet  Ali  vocatus 
est.  Novo  iraperatori  Suleiman  nomen  est.  The  great  danger 
is  covering  too  much  ground.  I  have  also  been  driven  to 
another  experiment  (the  Neposes  ordered  were  not  sent  in 
time),  which  seems  to  answer.  I  took  Cornelius  Nepos, 
chap.   I.,  clause  by  clause,  and  got  the  boys  to  construe  as 


Wrinkles  233 

I  read  it  out.  What  was  too  difficult  for  them  I  omitted  or 
explained.  When  they  had  been  through  it  a  few  times  and 
knew  all  about  it,  I  gave  it  out  as  dictation.  This  piece  of 
dictation  was  very  fairly  done.  I  corrected  it.  On  Monday 
the  boys  will  have  to  construe  it  and  also  put  sentences 
from  it  into  Latin.  This  way  of  giving  out  the  Latin  seems 
to  me  better  than  giving  the  boys  the  text,  at  first  at  least. 
One  great  advantage  is  that  one  can  cut  out  things  beyond 
their  comprehension  and  draw  their  attention  to  peculiarities. 
There  is  a  good  paper  in  this  month's  Journal  of  Education, 
by  C.  W.  Bourne,  falling  foul  of  the  Local  Examinations  for 
setting  the  book  a  year  beforehand  so  that  the  translation  is 
learnt  off  by  heart.  If  the  piece  set  in  examinations  were 
varied,  this  learning  by  heart  plan  would  break  down." 


Matches.     Scratch  pairs 

"  19.  II.  77.  1  have  to-day  hit  on  a  plan  which  has  ad- 
vantages over  other  matches.  It  was  suggested,  I  think,  by 
the  '  scratch  pairs  '  at  fives.  The  master  makes  a  list  of  pairs, 
putting  the  best  boy  with  the  worst,  the  next  best  with  the 
next  worst,  and  so  on.  A  number  of  questions,  hard  and  easy 
alternately,  are  given,  and  everybody  writes  the  answers.  In 
this  way,  if  the  master  has  arranged  the  pairs  well,  it  will  be 
found  that  the  number  of  marks  gained  by  each  pair  are 
about  the  same,  and  there  is  great  excitement  to  see  who 
will  win." 

Seria  ludo 

"  I  found  myself  getting  ill-tempered,  though  I  don't  know 
why,  and  it  became  necessary  to  make  the  lesson  amusing  if 
possible.  I  did  this  by  letting  the  boys  count  simultaneously 
in  different  series,  2,  5,  8,  11,  &c.,  and  doing  it  as  a  kind  of 
drill  in  time  with  the  beatings  of  a  stick.     The  thing  was  to 


2  34  R.  H.  Quick 

see  who  stopped  when  my  stick  stopped.  Some  boys  were 
caught  every  time,  and  they  all  shouted  with  laughter  when- 
ever I  stopped  and  they  did  not.  I  afterwards  had  a  short 
match  between  sides  which  I  selected.  As  I  managed  to 
amuse  the  boys  I  recovered  my  own  equanimity.  After 
dinner  I  gave  out  a  French  song  in  the  following  way.  I 
dictated  first  the  English  of  a  verse.  I  then  asked  the 
French  for  words  where  I  thought  they  would  know  them ; 
in  fact  I  made  them  (with  help)  find  out  the  French.  I 
then  read  the  French  to  them  and  asked  for  infinitives  of 
verbs,  &c.  Finally  I  wrote  the  French  line  by  Hne  on  the 
board.  No  one  was  allowed  to  write  till  I  had  rubbed  out 
the  French.  Thus  they  were  driven  to  observe  the  whole 
line  and  remember  the  spelling,  accents,  &c.  They  were 
much  interested  by  this  mode  of  copying,  and  they  did  it 
very  fairly.  Of  course  the  time  spent  in  giving  out  a  song 
in  this  way  is  considerable,  but  it  pays." 

Bad  Teaching 

"  Ordinary  teaching  in  the  country  is  intensely  bad.  Of 
this  there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever.  E.g.  I  went  the  other 
evening  and  found  Bertie  B.  (eight  years  old)  getting  up  his 
work  for  the  following  day  (he  is  a  day-boy  at  Miss  W.'s 
school).  I  found  he  was  being  introduced  to  Latin  by 
learning  by  heart  the  Public  School  Primer  from  the  be- 
ginning, sma//  print  and  all,  and  saying  the  gibberish  —  such 
it  must  be  to  him  —  at  the  rate  of  a  third  of  a  page  a  day. 
When  one  sees  how  idiotic  much  school  teaching  is,  one 
thinks  that  much  better  results  would  be  obtained  by  ra- 
tional teaching,  but  I  suspect  one  exaggerates  the  possible 
improvements.  The  boy's  mind  pursues  its  own  way,  and  is 
but  slightly  affected  by  his  school  work.  Young  people's 
minds  gambol  about  like  puppies.  The  old  gentleman  takes 
the  puppy  for  a  walk.     He  plods  slowly  along  the  path  :  the 


Accuracy  for  children  235 

puppy  runs  all  over  the  adjacent  fields.  It's  of  no  use  trying 
to  keep  the  puppy  at  his  heels,  so  whether  the  path  is  good 
or  not  doesn't  so  much  matter.  Of  course  this  figure,  like 
most  figures,  must  not  be  pushed  far.  The  puppy's  muscles 
gain  as  much  by  its  scampering  in  all  directions  as  by 
following  a  beaten  track,  but  the  boy's  mind  has  to  learn  con- 
centration. It  is  an  interesting  question  how  long  concen- 
trated attention  would  be  kept  up  by  boys.  In  almost  all 
school  work  the  boys  only  think  of  the  work  by  snatches,  so 
the  school  time  may  be  long  without  over  mental  fiitigue. 
But  if  the  teaching  were  really  effective,  it  could  not  go  on  for 
so  many  hours  of  the  day." 

Is  accurate  knowledge  possible  or  desirable  for  children? 

"  At  first  go-off  one  thinks  that,  by  sticking  to  a  little, 
one  can  get  that  little  perfect :  but  this  is  not  so  certain. 
Suppose  we  take,  say,  in  Latin,  the  first  declension  and  the 
present  of  sum.  By  working  these  in  all  sorts  of  ways  a 
small  boy  does  in  time  get  to  know  them,  but  the  teacher 
is  appalled  to  find  how  much  time  and  practice  it  takes  to 
get  even  this  small  amount  well  known,  and  after  all  he 
comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  child's  knowledge  is  at  best 
nothing  like  his  own  knowledge,  so  that  he  hardly  seems  to 
get  a  proper  return  for  the  time  and  trouble  spent.  And 
then  again,  the  child  has  no  love  of  accuracy  and  has  a 
great  love  of  getting  on ;  so  this  grinding  away  at  a  small 
quantity  seems  to  him  like  marking  time  instead  of  marching. 
Bertie  B.  tolil  me  the  other  day  he  was  awfully  glad  he  had 
got  into  a  new  Latin  book,  the  old  one  was  '  so  easy.'  He 
admitted  that  he  did  not  do  the  exercises  in  the  old  book 
quite  right,  but  as  the  book  was  easy  he  was  glad  to  get 
out  of  it.  As  children  want  to  get  on  and  have  pleasure 
in  putting  out  their  strength,  one  sees  that  the  plan  which 
requires    them    to   master    the    elements   thoroughly   must   be 


236  R.  H.  Quick 

worked  with  the  greatest  caution.  Comiietition  is  the  best 
spur  to  getting  up  the  pace  combined  with  accuracy.  As  V. 
is  alone,  I  manage  to  make  him  compete  with  himself.  I  time 
him  and  see  how  long  he  is  in  giving  the  Latin  of  a  set  of 
English  sentences  again  and  again,  and  keeping  a  record.  He 
has  a  tliary  in  which  the  times  are  entered  and  the  marks  he 
gets  for  each  lesson." 

Whv  children  arc  badlv  taught 

"  It  is  strange  how  ill  simple  things  like  teaching  arith- 
metic are  done.  My  new  pupils  can't  set  down  a  simple 
addition  sum  even  with  a  few  digits.  The  /arm  of  all  their 
written  work  is  horrible,  and  they  are  terribly  backward. 
The  truth  is,  no  one  will  take  the  pains  to  teach  children 
properly.  It  is  thought  to  be  what  anybody  can  do.  But 
this  is  a  mistake.  It  requires  a  good  deal  of,  intelligence  and 
a  vast  amount  of  time  and  patience,  and  these  three  factors 
are  rarely  fouful  together.  There  are  in  the  world  a  host  of 
things  which  can  be  done  with  great  ease  passat>I\\  but  cannot 
without  great  effort  be  done  well.  Under  this  heading  comes 
the  teaching  of  young  boys.  It  is  easy  enough  to  keep  them 
quiet  and  employed,  and  more  than  this  seems  hardly  ex- 
pected by  anyone.  That  some  small  boys  have  F'dhii^keiten 
is  proved  by  the  men  who  run  boys  for  entrance  scholarships. 
It  is,  I  believe,  wonderful  how  good  their  Latin  and  Greek 
composition  is  at  thirteen.  But  this  is  the  only  excellence 
hitherto  cultivated.  A  boy's  time  is  practically  considered  of 
no  value  before  twelve,  if  he  is  not  going  in  for  an  entrance 
scholarship.  In  six  years,  between  six  and  twelve,  he  is  taught 
to  write,  but  not  to  cx])ress  himself  in  writing.  Me  is  taught, 
or  rather  half  taught,  the  multi])lirati()n  table.  He  is  taught 
to  ])Otter  about  with  figures  whicli  he  doesn't  understand, 
lie  has  a  smattering  of  Latin  given  him,  but  does  not  know 
even   the  declensions  perfectly.      He  has  also  learnt   history 


Preparatory  Schools 


and  geography  ;  btit,  whatever  that  process  may  have  been,  it 
has  left  no  trace  behind.  He  reads  with  some  effort  and 
httle  understanding,  unless  he  has  taken  to  amusing  books 
for  himself.  He  spells  badly  and  does  not  know  a  single 
piece  of  Knglish  poetry  or  a  single  hymn,  though  he  has 
learnt  several.  Finally  his  understanding  of  English  words 
extends  only  to  the  words  he  uses  with  his  schoolfellows. 
He  knows  the  sound  of  many  more  words,  but  they  convey 
no  notion  to  his  mind. 

"  It  might  seem  at  first  sight  as  if  it  would  be  very  easy  to 
improve  on  this,  but  when  things  settle  down  pretty  generally 
in  a  particular  way,  there  must  be  some  reason  for  it;  the 
tendency  must  be  strong  in  that  direction.  I  own  I  attrib- 
ute a  good  deal  (too  much  perhaps)  to  a  thoroughly  bad 
tradition.  Could  anything  show  more  folly  than  the  ordi- 
nary school-books  for  children?  But  in  my  disgust  I  am  in 
danger  of  rushing  into  the  opposite  extreme  and  not  making 
enough  use  of  books." 

Shades  of  the  prison-house 

"21.  I.  82.  There  was  a  time  when  I  thoiight  lads  from 
fourteen  to  seventeen  heavy,  uninterested  and  uninteresting. 
When  I  went  to  Orme  Square  I  found  young  bovs,  children 
ill  fact,  far  more  delightful.  Perhaps  in  school  I  find  them 
so  still,  but  as  companions  out  of  school — !  There  is  no 
disguising  the  fact  that  they  talk  an  infinity  of  the  silliest 
rubbish.  Most  of  their  talk  to  one  another  is  a  series  of 
rudenesses  which  provoke  in  all  but  the  person  addressed  a 
clatter  of  unmeaning  laughter.  Is  it  tliat  I  am  growing  old? 
Or  why  do  I  find,  as  I  never  found  before,  boys  an  intolerable 
bore  ? 

"  I  hear  Kynersley  does  what  I  always  meant  to  do,  refuses 
boys  who  have  ever  been  at  a  boartling  school.  I  have  now 
been  just  on  a  year  at  this  work  and  have  not  had  a  single 


238  R.  If.  Quick 

boy  offered  me  straight  from  home,  so  my  plan  of  an  ideal 
school  has  entirely  fallen  through.  I  have  even  tried  to 
persuade  myself  that,  as  I  could  not  refuse  boys  froni  day 
schools,  I  could  not  keep  out  mischief  and  improper  know- 
ledge. This  may  be  so,  but  it  is  not  so  much  the  knowledge 
as  the  tone  of  boys  from  preparatory  schools  that  does  the 
harm. 

"  What  disgusting  holes  the  ordinary  pre])aratory  schools 
must  be.  I  have  here  now  V.  I).,  who  in  his  talk  with  other 
boys  reminds  me  of  the  lowest  type  of  London  '  cad '  when 
on  the  '  spree.'  Instead  of  having  their  minds  directed  to 
whatever  things  are  fair,  they  have  had  nothing  to  think  of 
but  the  mean,  squalid  surroundings  and  the  petty  monotony 
of  their  dreary  lives.  How  they  can  have  been  employed  in 
school  for  so  many  hours  without  learning  anything  at  all  is 
to  me  a  mystery." 

Repetition  the  mother  of  studies 

"  25  Jan.  '82.  I  ended  the  last  book  with  a  growl  at  pre- 
paratory schools  and  the  boys  who  come  from  them.  'I'hese 
schools  do  seem  utterly  bad,  and  I  have  said  why  I  think 
them  bad  in  their  moral  influence.  That  their  intellectual 
influence  is  bad  is  no  great  wonder.  The  teachers,  as  a 
rule,  have  no  clear  ideas  themselves.  How  then  can  they 
give  clear  ideas  to  others?  Then  one  of  the  most  valuable 
lessons  that  can  be  taught  is  how  to  take  pains.  But  this 
lesson  is  seldom  taught.  The  boys  are  aflowed  to  scramble 
through  their  work,  and  much  more  is  made  of  quantity  than 
quality.  I  know  how  hard  it  is  to  get  anything  beyond  a  very 
low  standard.  When  I  first  began  teaching  I  once  halved  the 
lessons  of  the  form  and  thought  to  double  the  accuracy  of 
the  learning.  Lowe  reproved  me,  and  in  part  he  was  right. 
The  boys'  preparation  of  construing  was  not  much  better 
than   before.     Boys   are  accustomed    to  a  low  standard,  and 


Science  239 

hardly  understand  the  existence  of  a  higher.  Construing  was 
an  unfortunate  subject  for  the  experiment.  There  are  things, 
however,  in  which  youngsters  can  raise  the  standard.  For 
instance,  in  written  work,  if  you  insist  on  neatness,  a  certain 
amount  of  painstaking  becomes  necessary  at  once.  When  a 
boy  takes  pains  to  form  each  letter  properly,  the  habit  of 
painstaking  has  already  begun.  Accuracy  is  generally  ren- 
dered impossible  by  a  stupid  notion  that,  directly  one  thing 
is  learnt,  a  boy  should  go  on  to  the  next.  But  when  a 
thing  is  learnt,  it  should  be  impressed  by  constant  repeti- 
tion. Learn  something  thoroughly  and  then  compare  with  it 
what  comes  next.  This  should  be  the  invarible  rule ;  as 
in  Latin  with  the  first  and  second  declensions,  the  first  and 
second  conjugations.  Another  important  point  is  to  keep 
anomalies  out  of  sight.  I  asked  S.  to  give  a  beginner  some 
second  declension  words  to  write,  and  he  at  once  wrote  down 
virus.     This  was  a  terrible  blunder." 


Science  7iot  for  children 

"  I'm  afraid  I  must  be  very  bumptious,  but  though  I  know 
well  enough  what  a  slight  and  feeble  insight  I  have  into  things, 
I  am  constantly  astonished  at  the  gross  stupidity  which  people 
fall  into  in  most  matters  of  which  I  am  competent  to  judge. 
Anybody  who  has  a  conception  of  what  science  is  and  of  what 
a  child  is,  must  know  that  all  the  conceptions  of  science  are 
quite  out  of  the  child's  reach,  and  yet  nowadays  children 
have  lessons  in  science.  May  told  me  that  at  his  last  school 
they  had  lessons  twice  a  week  in  science — 'centre  of  gravity 
and  that  sort  of  thing.'  '  What  is  the  centre  of  gravity  ? '  I 
asked.  '  The  line  that  keeps  you  up,  Sir,  isn't  it  ? '  He 
had  doubtless  seen  a  picture  of  a  man  with  a  vertical  line 
through  the  centre  of  gravity,  and  had  been  told  something 
about  falling.  Hence  this  new  definition  of  the  centre  of 
gravity." 


240  R.  //.   Quick 


JVork  ill  done  is  worse  than  none 

"It  is  very  important  with  all  boys,  young  boys  especially, 
that  they  should  be  sure  of  getting  recognition,  and  prompt 
recognition,  whenever  they  take  particular  pains.  This  is  even 
more  important  than  that  occasional  carelessness  should  not 
escape  notice ;  for  if  a  boy  takes  great  pains  with  a  piece  of 
work  anl  expects  this  to  be  noticed,  he  is  discouraged  by 
finding  it  passed  over.  Of  course  it  makes  a  great  demand 
on  the  master  if  every  piece  of  written  work  is  to  be  esti- 
mated soon  after  it  is  done,  and  this  may  seem  almost  im- 
possible when  numbers  are  large  ;  but  careless  work  is  worse 
than  useless.  '  Work  ill  done  is  worse  than  none '  might  be 
a  school  proverb.  So  the  quantity  should  be  kept  down  and 
pains  are  easily  discovered  ;  the  mere  handwriting  is  commonly 
an  index." 

The  mind  of  young  boys 

"  My  notion  is  that  very  young  boys  lack  not  so  much 
intellectual  perception  as  intellectual  retention,  W.  T.  often 
shows  remarkable  intelligence  in  taking  things  in,  and  the 
ideas  of  powers  and  multiples  had  been  in  his  mind,  I  am 
sure,  over  and  over  again.  But  the  young  mind,  though  it 
perceives,  does  not  conceive  knowledge  like  an  older  mind. 
Perhaps  the  words  are  retained,  but  the  ideas  slip  from  under 
them.  The  teacher  has  assured  himself  that  the  ideas  were 
there  ;  by  frequent  repetition  he  ascertains  that  the  words  are 
there  still,  so  he  thinks  he  is  building  on  a  sure  foundation 
when  there  is  nothing  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil  but  empty 
husks  of  words." 

Emiilation  in  small  schools 

"  22.  7.  82.  One  of  the  great  advantages  of  a  large  school 
is  supposed  to  be  the  greater  force  of  emulation  which  can  be 


Small  Classes  241 

obtained  where  the  numbers  are  large,  but  it  is  very  easy  to 
overestimate  the  peculiar  advantages  of  a  big  school  in  this 
respect.  In  large  classes  only  the  boys  near  the  top  are 
much  affected  by  rivalry.  The  boys  who  think  they  have 
no  chance  of  their  remove  don't  much  care  where  they  come 
out,  so  the  spur  only  pricks  the  winning  horses.  And  where 
the  number  is  small  the  master  can  get  emulation  enough. 
When  I  had  only  one  pupil  I  managed  to  make  him  com- 
pete with  himself,  and  he  was  immensely  delighted  to  find 
how  his  pace  improved.  When  the  number  of  boys  is  small, 
some  may  be  discouraged  by  finding  they  cannot  keep  up 
with  their  companions  ;  but  one  can  generally  find  some  sub- 
ject in  which  the  order  is  inverted.  Certainly  in  the  '  trials ' 
now  going  on  I  find  the  competition  keen  enough,  though  only 
six  boys  are  being  examined." 

Advantages  of  few  pupils 

"21.  6.  82.  It  always  is,  and  I  suppose  must  be,  the 
case  that  we  are  most  conscious  of  the  advantages  of  what 
we  have  decided  to  part  with.  I  have  always  found  pleasure 
in  teaching  small  boys,  whether  many  or  few,  but  I  am  only 
just  learning  what  a  magnificent  field  of  observation  is  open 
to  the  teacher  of  a  /e7a.  Herbart  said  that  a  teacher,  in 
learning  his  calling,  ought  for  a  time  to  teach  one  or  two. 
I  don't  know  whether  a  young  teacher  would  make  the  most 
of  such  an  opportunity,  but  a  grand  opportunity  it  certainly 
is,  especially  if  the  number  be  fiv^e  or  six  instead  of  one  or 
two. 

"  Then  again,  masters  generally  trouble  themselves  very 
little  about  the  preparation  of  the  boys.  Yet  I  agree  with 
Br^al  that  the  master  may  learn  more  by  being  with  the 
boys  and  observing  them  when  they  are  preparing  their  work 
than  by  spending  any  amount  of  time  examining  the  results 
afterwards. 


242  R.  H.  Quick 

"  C.  M.  is  a  regular  specimen  of  a  boy  with  English  school 
training.  If  you  give  him  an  hour's  work  to  do  he  has  always 
'  done  it,'  at  the  end  of  twenty  minutes,  and  he  will  sit  doing 
nothing  or  fidgeting  and  distracting  the  other  boys  for  the 
remaining  forty  minutes.  Yet  he  is  not  exactly  idle,  and  will 
do  a  vast  amount  of  work,  if  it  is  mere  mechanical  work,  and 
he  may  do  it  at  his  own  pace  ;  but  he  can't  or  won't  think, 
so  that  I  can  get  no  good  work  out  of  him.  Whether  boys 
of  this  stamp  are  the  outcome  or  the  efficient  cause  of 
our  ordinary  school  system  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  but 
they  tend  to  make  a  quantity  of  mechanical  work  seem  a 
necessity." 

£vi7  is  wrought  by  want  of  thought 

"27.  7.  82.  Those  who  have  charge  of  the  young  should 
take  care  to  give  them  three  things  —  something  to  eat,  some- 
thing to  do,  something  to  think  and  talk  about.  Unfortu- 
nately this  third  requisite  is  almost  always  neglected.  School- 
work,  when  it  is  good,  does  a  great  deal  for  training  the 
thinking  powers,  but  it  does  not  furnish  anything  to  think 
about  when  lessons  are  over.  Grown  people  sometimes 
grumble  at  the  amount  of  interest  given  to  the  games.  At 
Harrow  it  sounds  almost  ludicrous  to  hear  the  boys  talk  of 
a  cricket-match  as  if  the  welfare  of  the  school,  not  to  say  of 
Europe,  depended  on  it.  But  boys  must  think  about  some- 
thing. To  some  extent,  no  doubt,  their  homes  supply  them 
with  matter  for  thought  but  not  for  talk.  The  most  natural 
common  subject  is  the  games,  and  there  might  be  a  much 
worse  one.  Much  of  the  filthy  talk  among  boys  comes  from 
an  absence  of  subjects  of  interest.  A  big  boy  at  a  public 
school  told  C.  A,  that  home  was  a  delight  to  him  because 
he  got  a  change  of  conversation  there.  At  school  he  heard 
hardly  anything  but  foulness.  This  he  did  not  object  to  on 
moral   grounds,    but    it    bored    him    by    its    monotony.      The 


Boys    Conversation  243 

amount  of  such  talk  the  masters  cannot  of  course  ascertain, 
but  when  I  hear  boys  talking  among  themselves  I  am  sur- 
prised how  vapid  their  talk  is.  It  is  made  up  almost  en- 
tirely of  '  what  we  did  at  the  last  school '  ;  and,  though  I 
don't  wonder  at  each  boy's  taking  an  interest  in  his  07vn 
past,  I  don't  understand  their  listening  so  patiently  to  the 
dull  stuff  they  tell  one  another." 

Latin  into  English 

"  It  is  wonderful  how  boys  break  down  over  the  very 
simplest  Latin  Unseen,  and  yet  this  is  a  power  which  should 
be  especially  cultivated.  The  exercise  books  mostly  give 
sentences  to  be  put  into  English,  but  they  are  of  the  same 
difficulty  as  the  sentences  to  be  put  into  Latin.  This  is  an 
obvious  mistake.  Learners  should  have  far  harder  sentences 
than  they  could  put  into  Latin." 

Arithmetic 

"5.  9.  87.  Yesterday  I  had  a  talk  with  Havves  Turner, 
who  thinks  that,  as  intuition  can  go  only  a  very  little  way, 
arithmetic  should  be  considered  a  science  of  abstraction  and 
symbols  like  algebra.  'To  work  with  abstractions,'  says 
Turner,  Ms  a  great  step  in  intellectual  progress,  and  this 
the  child  should  make  very  early  in  arithmetic.  When  you 
say  there  are  5  men  on  5  horses  and  that  the  number  of 
men  and  of  horses  is  the  same,  you  abstract  the  number 
and  think  of  it  as  you  think  of  an  algebraic  symbol.  There 
is  no  advantage  in  taking  the  number  5.  It  would  make 
little  difference  in  difficulty  if  you  sail,  if  every  horse  had  a 
rider,  the  number  of  horses  and  riders  would  both  be  w.' 
Turner  is  essentially  a  theoretical  man,  a  man  with  a  restless 
intellect,  who  is  always  dancing  round  everything  to  get  a 
complete  notion  of  it,  and  who  does  not  care   a  button   for 


244  ^-  ^-  Q^^^^^'^ 

anything  but  the  comj^lete  view.  The  intellect  of  most  of 
us,  of  myself  certainly,  is  by  no  means  restless,  and  it  works, 
not  in  quest  of  complete  views,  but  simply  to  see  how  things 
may  best  be  done.  Not  the  complete  view,  but  the  practical 
advantages  we  derive  from  it  are  what  we  value.  So  we 
seldom  penetrate  further  than  we  expect  to  find  some  prac- 
tical results.  In  this  particular  case  the  result  which  the 
ordinary  teacher  cares  about  is,  how  can  a  child  be  easiest 
taught  to  do  sums.  Of  course  this  is  not  the  result  I  think 
of  as  most  important.  I  want  to  know  how  the  child  can 
best  have  its  intellectual  power  developed.  In  this  subject 
of  arithmetic  the  Germans  all  say,  Keep  to  intuition  as  long 
as  possible.  For  a  year  or  two  never  give  any  number  that 
the  child  can  have  no  conception  of.  This  of  course  ex- 
cludes the  multiplication  table.  9  X9  =  8i,  though  it  may  be 
verified,  never  can  be  perceived  even  by  the  adult.  Turner 
thinks  the  dwelling  on  intuition  by  the  Germans  is  a  mis- 
take. He  finds  arithmetic  is  a  science  of  abstractions  ;  he 
knows  that  the  intellect  makes  a  stride  when  it  throws  over 
the  particular  and  grasps  the  general,  so  he  says  it  is  a  mis- 
take to  keep  children  as  far  as  possible  to  intuitions.  My 
notion  is  that  neither  arithmetic  nor  algebra  as  usually  taught 
does  much  for  the  intellect.  It  doesn't  follow  that  when  you 
cease  to  have  intuition  you  get  abstraction." 

The  key  to  Discipline,  Patience 

"  One  of  the  great  secrets  of  managing  young  people,  children 
especially,  is  to  give  them  time  for  reflection.  Children  are 
constantly  being  ruffled  by  this  or  that,  and  immediately  turn 
'  naughty.'  They  will,  if  addressed,  then  answer  rudely.  Of 
course  it  is  in  the  power  of  the  grown  person  to  punish  them 
so  severely  that  they  dare  not  be  rude  another  time.  But  a 
litUe  forbearance  will  often  do  better.  In  point  of  fact,  the  dis- 
play of  'temper'  on  the  part  of  the  young  commonly  produces 


Do  not  force  the  pace  245 

a  corresponding  feeling  of  temper  in  tlie  grown-n}),  and 
a  conflict  ensues  in  which  the  grown-up  has  all  the  credit 
and  the  young  one  all  the  punishment.  l>ittle  as  we  allow 
it,  even  to  ourselves,  we  do  mostly  feel  irritated  when  the 
young  resist  us,  and  we  are  apt  to  punish,  as  we  think  for 
their  sakes,  when  in  truth  it  is  more  for  our  own.  But  can 
we  allow  the  young  to  set  our  authority  at  defiance?  This  is 
a  very  nice  point.  The  truth  I  take  to  be  this  :  the  strong 
can  allow  their  authority  to  be  disregarded  ;  the  weak  cannot. 
This  is  the  reason  why  nursemaids,  pupil-teachers  and  such 
punish  much  more  readily  than  a  man  would  punish.  The 
late  Lord  Derby  once  quoted  against  the  Duke  of  Argyll  the 
story  of  the  navvy  who  let  his  wife  beat  him  because  it  pleased 
her  and  did  not  hurt  him.  Where  possible,  it  is  better  to  give 
the  child  time  to  recover,  and  to  treat  its  naughtiness  as  some- 
thing absurd.  In  any  case  we  must  beware  of  giving  way  to 
our  own  temper." 

Unreasonable  demands  of  Teachers  on   Childre?i 

"24.  10.  87.  There  is  (or  should  be)  the  same  differ- 
ence between  the  powers  of  thought  of  a  man  intellectually 
educated  and  a  man  intellectually  uneducated  as  there  is 
between  the  power  of  muscle  in  the  trained  athlete  and  the 
ordinary  person.  Now  the  child  is  ex  hypothesi  uneducated, 
and  the  teacher  is  (or  should  be)  an  intellectual  athlete. 
Now  suppose  an  athlete  were  to  perform  some  feat  before 
a  child  and  then  require  the  child  to  imitate  it.  It  might 
happen  that  the  feat  was  the  very  simplest  and  easiest  that 
the  athlete  could  think  of,  and  yet  the  child  might  be  totally 
unable  to  '  follow  my  leader.'  If  the  athlete  got  impatient 
and  tried  to  expedite  matters  by  harsh  language  or  blows,  we 
should  think  him  an  ass  or  a  brute.  But  in  teaching  we  find 
this  sort  of  thing  only  too  common.  The  teacher  performs 
some  very  small  effort  of  thought  and  requires  the  learner  to 


246  R.  H.  Quick 

follow,  but  the  learner  can't ;  or  perhaps  the  learner  manages 
it  once,  and  then  the  teacher  assumes  that  the  child  can  do 
it  again  with  as  little  exertion  as  the  teacher  ;  but  in  point  of 
fact  the  effort  tired  the  weak  intellectual  muscles,  and  cannot 
for  a  time  be  repeated.  The  teacher  forgets  this  and  calls  the 
child's  refusal  gross  stupidity  or  even  contumacy.  The  reflec- 
tions are  borne  in  on  me  by  my  difficulty  in  getting  Dora  to 
see  that  if  an  becomes  an  when  written  ane,  In  must  be  pro- 
nounced m  when  written  ine.''' 


What  to  teach    '  247 


WHAT   TO   TEACH 

Latin  in  Middte-ctass  Schools 

"On  the  opening  day  at  Cranleigh  Lord  Carnarvon  praised 
the  school  plan  for  including  Latin.  Charles  Buxton,  on  the 
other  hand,  praised  it  for  placing  Latin  last  in  the  list  of  sub- 
jects taught.  Boys,  he  argued,  should  be  made  happy.  Latin 
grammar  makes  them  miserable.  It  is  necessary  drudgery  when 
the  study  of  great  classical  authors  is  to  follow,  but  if  boys  are 
never  to  go  beyond  the  rudiments,  the  rudiments  had  much 
better  be  given  up  altogether. 

"  This  sounds  plausible,  but  I  for  one  do  not  agree  to 
it.  I  deny  in  limine  that  Latin  grammar  is  drudgery.  There 
is  a  compactness  about  it  which  makes  it  pleasant  to  teach 
and  to  learn.  Then  it  is  a  great  advantage  to  teach  a  boy  a 
foreign  language  without  the  great  crux  of  pronunciation.  I 
doubt  if  an  intelligent  boy  could  in  any  other  way,  in  the 
same  time,  get  his  notions  of  language  so  extended,  get  to 
distinguish  so  clearly  between  what  is  conventional  and  what 
belongs  to  the  first  principles  as  by  a  course  of  Latin  grammar. 
Then,  by  constantly  connecting  Latin  words  with  the  English 
derivatives,  we  shall  greatly  improve  our  boys'  knowledge  of 
their  own  tongue  and  guard  against  a  very  common  weakness 
of  their  class,  the  habit  of  using  words  without  understanding 
them.  Again,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Latin  can  be  properly 
learnt  at  school,  and  it  is  not  so  certain  that  we  could  make 
anything  of  the  'ologies. 

"In  this  matter,  no  doubt,  I  am  prejudiced.  When  I 
was  at  Zermatt  I  went  to  consult  the  village  doctor  for 
a  fit  of  toothache.  He  had  nothing  specially  suitable  for 
that  disorder,  but  offered  to  treat  me  for  fits,  as  he  had 
some  medicine  which  he  had  found  efficacious  in  such  cases. 
Doubtless  University  men  who  engage  in  education  are  likely 


248  R.  H.  Quick 

to  he  guided,  as  the  Zermatt  doctor  was,  rather  by  what 
they  can  give  than  hy  what  is  required.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  educational  theorists  consider  merely  whether  it  would  be 
atlvantageous  for  a  boy  to  have  learnt  such  and  such  subjects, 
and  forget  that  some  things  boys  can  and  will  learn,  and  some 
things  they  can't  and  won't." 

Forms  of  sound  'words 

"  Forms  of  words  which  give  expression  to  one's  feelings 
and  thoughts  often  have  great  influence  over  them.  This  is, 
of  course,  specially  true  of  words  of  the  Bible.  I  have 
often  wondered  at  the  small  effect  the  clearest  words  seem 
to  have  —  how  Bible  readers  quite  unconsciously  read  and 
re-read  passages  without  attaching  any  meaning,  or  attaching 
(juite  a  false  meaning,  to  them.  I  have  been  so  much  struck 
by  this  that  at  times  I  have  wished  that  we  were  less  fa- 
mihar  with  Scripture,  and  have  thought  it  would  be  better  if 
all  freshness  were  not  destroyed  as  it  is  by  our  present  edu- 
cation. But  on  the  other  hand,  though  words  seem  often  as 
incapable  of  stirring  thought  as  fire  is  of  kindling  stone,  there 
are  times  when  thought  and  feeling  seek  expression,  and  then 
we  take  to  familiar  words  to  express  them.  In  doing  this  we 
are  much  influenced  by  the  words,  so  it  is  of  great  importance 
that  we  should  have  true  and  noble  forms  of  expression  in  our 

minds A  good  deal  of  Tennyson,  especially  /;/  Memoriam, 

has  so  got  intertwined  with  my  feelings  and  experiences  that 
I  can  hardly  think  of  some  of  the  greatest  problems  of  life 
without  some  of  his  verses  ringing  in  my  ears,  and  doubtless 
affecting  my  attitude  towards  them.  For  these  reasons  I 
think  that  noble  expressions  of  thought  and  feeling,  espe- 
cially rhythmical  expressions,  should  be  given  boys  as  a  pos- 
session for  life,  not  learnt  to-day  and  forgotten  tomorrow. 
'  Never  learn  by  heart  what  you  don't  understand '  has  some- 
thing to  say  for  itself;  but,  though  I  would  give  as  much  as 


The  poiver  of  luords  249 

possible  what  would  interest  boys,  I  feel  that  we  cannot  stop 
here.  We  want  to  give  them  some  things  which  can  only  be 
understood  properly  with  wider  experience  than  theirs." 

Culture  V.  Science.     I.  C.  S.  Examinations 

"  23  Dec.  '76.  In  to-day's  Times  there  is  a  letter  from 
Sir  Richard  Strachey  about  the  Headmasters'  Conference. 
It  seems  that  the  Headmasters  want  to  have  the  examina- 
tions for  the  I.  C.  S.  assimilated  to  that  for  Entrance  Scholar- 
ships at  the  University.  Of  course,  if  the  examinations  differ 
in  subjects,  the  masters  cannot  prepare  their  boys  to  go  in  for 
either  one  or  the  other,  and  the  *  Indians  '  must  go  to  crammers. 
But  Sir  Richard  points  out  that  science  is  more  needed  in 
India  than  culture.  The  classical  course  was  formed  by  those 
who  wanted  to  give  knowledge  —  all  the  knowledge  then  at- 
tainable. We  now  defend  the  course  on  different  grounds. 
Perhaps  so,  but  our  arguments  against  utility  are  not  new 
arguments.  We  find  them  stated  strongly  enough  by  Plato 
and  Aristotle." 

Grant  Duff  on  a  Rational  Education 

"  20.  8.  77.  In  the  Fortnightly  Review  this  month  (August) 
there  is  an  article  by  Grant  Duff  on  a  Rational  Education.  It 
is  far  from  a  wise  paper.  His  notion  of  the  educated  man  is 
the  man  who  has  been  taught  certain  things.  There  is,  I 
believe,  a  fundamental  error  here.  I  believe  the  educated 
man  (/.<?.  the  intellectually  educated  —  physical  and  moral 
education  are  not  in  question),  the  intellectually  educated 
man,  is  he  who  has  intellectual  interests  aroused  in  him, 
who  has  a  desire  of  knowledge  and  also  the  art  of  gaining, 
retaining  and  using  it.  G.  D.  places  the  centre  of  his  system 
in  the  things  to  be  learnt,  and  makes  it  the  test  of  the  edu- 
cated—  does  he  know  Geography,  English  Literature,  Italian, 
&c.  &c.     /  would  put  the   centre    of  the    education   in   the 


250  R.  H.  Quick 

man  and  ask,  Does  he  care  for  these  and  other  knowledges? 
Is  he  acquiring  them?  Can  he  acquire  them  ?  Can  he 
turn  what  knowledge  he  has  to  account?  But  someone 
may  say  the  difference  between  the  two  notions  is  more  ap- 
parent than  real.  G.  D.'s  educated  man  must  have  had  his 
interests  aroused  and  his  powers  developed  in  the  course  of 
his  learning,  and  your  educated  man  must  have  acquired  a 
good  deal  of  knowledge  in  the  course  of  his  development. 
I  admit  G.  D.  supposes  intellectual  interests  to  have  been 
aroused  as  well  as  knowledge  gained,  for  he  would  have  no 
study  taken  up  that  will  not  be  carried  on  in  after  life.  But 
there  will  be  found  a  great  practical  difference  between  the 
two  systems.  G.  D.  measures  everything  by  the  knowledge 
acquired,  I  would  measure  everything  by  the  activity  and 
strength  of  intellect  produced.  The  difference  between  man 
and  man  is  after  all  a  difference  in  power  of  vision,  much 
more  than  a  difference  in  the  things  subjected  to  inspection. 
The  educated  man,  says  G.  D.,  has  studied  the  masterpieces  of 
literature,  in  other  words,  the  teacher  has  made  him  read  them, 
given  explanations,  and  asked  questions.  When  this  process 
has  been  gone  through,  the  pupil  has  been  to  that  extent 
educated.  But  you  can't  put  the  mind  through  a  course 
of  literature  as  you  can  put  the  body  through  a  course  of 
marching.  Suppose  Samson  Agonistes  has  been  set  for  an 
Army  Examination.  Some  six  or  seven  hundred  young  men 
study  it  in  consequence,  and  are  all  of  them  to  that  extent 
*  educated '  in  G.  D.'s  sense  of  the  word.  But  in  my  sense 
of  the  word  many  at  least  of  these  young  men  are  perfectly 
incompetent  to  get  any  education  whatever  out  of  Samson 
Agonistes.  The  eye  sees  only  what  it  brings  with  it,  and 
some  of  these  young  men  can  see  in  Samson  Agonistes 
only  some  deuced  hard  stuff  that  they  have  great  difficulty 
in  getting  up.  It  is  then  absurd  to  speak  of  education  as 
if  it  were  teaching  or  even  learning  this  or  that.  Edu- 
cation is  training  the  mental  vision,  and  the  means  of  doing 


Knoiv ledge  no  ineasm'e  of  Education     251 

this  may  be  infinitely  varied.  Again,  G.  D.  talks  a1)0ut 
learning  Geography,  History,  &c.  &c.  This  sort  of  talk 
always  seems  to  me  to  show  the  profoundest  ignorance  of 
our  real  position. 

"  When  omne  scibile  was  supposed  to  be  contained  in  the 
writings  of  Aristotle  and  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  there  seemed 
some  sense  in  speaking  of  learning  as  a  finite  act.  But  now 
the  scibile  stretches  in  all  directions  to  infinity.  G.  D.  wishes 
everybody  to  learn  earth-knowledge.  Why,  a  man  might  de- 
vote his  whole  lif§  to  the  study  of  the  paddock  behind  his 
house  and  not  exhaust  the  study  even  of  this  little  cant  of 
earth  in  his  threescore  years  and  ten.  And  as  with  earth- 
knowledge,  so  vvith  other  knowledges.  It  is  not  more  absurd 
to  call  the  knowledge  of  the  names  of  a  few  excrescences 
and  the  course  of  a  few  streams  on  the  sm-face  of  the  earth 
earth-knowledge  than  to  call  history  the  knowledge  of  a  few 
facts  about  a  few  people  of  the  millions  who  have  gone  before 
us.  We  may  learn  Assyrian  history  and  even  Greek  and 
Roman  history,  thanks  to  the  greater  portion  of  those  his- 
torians having  passed  away  for  ever.  But  who  could  find 
time  to  learn  the  history  of  Europe  even  during  the  last 
month?  All  we  can  do  is  just  to  get  hold  of  a  few  facts, 
just  as  we  measure  the  big  mountains  and  draw  the  courses 
of  the  big  streams,  and  then  call  this  earth-knowledge.  Just 
the  same  with  the  other  knowledges,  so  that  when  we  com- 
pare what  the  'best  educated'  man  knows  with  what  might 
be  known,  the  amount  dwindles  to  insignificance.  G.  D. 
defines  the  object  of  all  general  education  to  be  '  to  enable 
people  to  make  the  most  of  their  lives,  or  in  other  words  : 
(i)  To  improve  their  own  faculties  to  the  uttermost.  (2)  To 
do  as  much  good  as  possible  to  other  people.  (3)  To  enjoy 
as  much  as  they  can,  due  regard  being  had  to  the  first  two 
objects.'  Now  I  don't  quarrel  with  this  definition,  but  I 
don't  think  that  the  course  he  prescribes  is  the  one  which 
would    naturally   follow   from    his    premises.      'The   leading 


252  R.  II.  Quick 

study  should  be  the  knowledge  of  the  ball  on  which  we  live, 
alike  in  its  physical  and  political  aspects.'  '  By  getting  up 
Mrs  Somerville's  Physical  Geography  and  Reclus's  La  terre 
a  vol  d'oiseatf,  the  pupil  would  by  one  or  two-and-twenty 
have  the  kind  of  knowledge  of  geography  in  its  highest  sense 
which  should  form  the  most  important  part  of  every  English 
gentleman's  education.'  A  writer  who  says  that  a  knowledge 
of  geography  should  form  the  most  important  part  of  educa- 
tion must  be  either  a  very  inaccurate  writer  or  a  very  erroneous 
thinker.  I  quite  agree  with  him  that  the  study  he  recommends 
is  an  important  one,  and  I  like  sticking  to  a  good  book,  but  it 
is  not  the  whole  duty  of  man." 


ShoiihaJid 

"4.  I.  So.  The  other  day  at  Cranleigh  Dr  Wormell  said 
that  they  had  been  driven  into  Pitman's  Shorthand  because 
employers  wanted  boys  who  knew  it,  and  so  great  has  been 
the  success  in  sharpening  boys'  brains  and  teaching  them  to 
analyse  sounds  that  he  would  keep  to  it  even  if  it  were  not 
used  out  of  school." 


Mark  Pattison  on  Middle  Class  Education,  in  New 
Quarterly  Magazine,  yizw.  18S0 

"  As  usual,  M.  P.  says  some  true  things  in  excellent  form  : 
'  There  is  a  religion  of  the  school,  a  religion  which  does  not 
consist  in  catechism,  but  in  inspiring  noble  aims  and  that 
human  consciousness  which  is  the  only  root  on  which  man- 
ners and  civility  can  be  grown.  .  .  .  The  only  principle  on 
which  a  great  people  constituted  for  permanence  can  estab- 
lish its  schools  is  on  the  recognition  of  the  worth  of  men 
as  men.' 


A  critique  of  Mai''k  Pattison  253 

"  But  what  people  ever  did  establish  schools  on  this  prin- 
ciple? The  English  were,  perhaps  are,  a  great  people,  but 
our  schools  were  never  established  on  this  principle.  The 
France  of  '89,  or  rather  of  '92,  had  such  an  idea,  but  there 
was  no  element  of  permanence  in  what  was  then  established. 
*  There  is  much  dispute  as  to  what  should  be  taught  in  middle 
schools.  Let  the  answer  be.  That  zvhich  liumanises.  The 
aim  of  the  school  is  not  the  storing  of  the  memory  with 
knowledge.  That  and  that  only  is  education  which  moulds, 
forms,  modifies  the  soul  or  mind.  Out  of  a  piece  of  cold 
metal  you  can  fashion  nothing.  Iron  must  be  heated  before 
it  can  be  bent  and  shaped  to  any  purpose.  Nothing  educates 
which  does  not  raise  the  mental  powers  at  least  to  red  heat ; 
it  is  more  efficacious  still  if  it  can  raise  them  to  a  white  heat, 
and  still  more,  if  it  can  fuse  them.' 

"  Doth  he  not  speak  in  parables  ?  I  wish  he  would  give 
us  a  key,  i.e.  use  simile  instead  of  metaphor. 

" '  Putting  aside  the  elementary  school,  which  is  a  prepara- 
tory stage  only,  we  shall  not  be  wrong  if  we  say  that  the  aim 
of  school  after  fourteen,  be  it  middle  or  grammar  school,  is  to 
form  a  perfect  mind  and  body,  senses  and  understanding,  all 
performing  their  functions  in  combined  healthy  and  harmonious 
action.' 

"While  agreeing  heartily  that  the  school  should  aim  at 
development,  I  doubt  whetlier,  even  in  its  ideal,  it  must  not 
accept  of  many  limitations.  E.g.  the  school  should  endea- 
vour to  cultivate  the  senses.  Should  it  attempt  to  train  the 
smell?  or  the  taste?  There  are  immense  possibilities  which 
must  be  neglected.  Our  toes  may  acquire  almost  as  much 
skill  as  our  fingers,  but  I  suppose  no  one  would  recommend 
toe  exercise.  I  expect  the  development  of  the  mind  must  be 
similarly  limited,  even  in  aim. 

" '  We  aim  not  at  teaching  this  or  that,  but  at  raising  all 
the  powers  bodily  and  mental  to  their  full  state  of  health 
and  vigour,  and  directing  them  towards  worthy  objects.     The 


2  54  R.  H.  Quick 

teacher,  says  Jean  Paul,  endeavours  to  liberate  the  ideal  hu- 
man being  which  is  concealed  in  every  child.  . .  .  This  is  why 
this  education  is  called  liberal,  because  it  liberates  the  true 
man  in  us  from  those  shackles  of  human  prejudice  in  which 
untrained  minds  are  hide-bound  all  their  lives.' 

"  Mark  Pattison  makes  a  point  by  using  *  liberal '  in  this 
sense,  but  surely  this  is  not  a  correct  account  of  the  word 
considered  historically." 

Compulsory   Greek  at  Cauibridge 

"  23.  10.  80.  This  question  is  to  be  discussed  again  on 
the  26th  instant.  I  have  lazily  kept  out  of  the  discussion 
hitherto,  and  yet  it  is  one  of  the  few  points  on  which  I  have 
a  very  decided  opinion.  There  are  some  subjects  of  study 
in  which  the  whole  course  is,  so  to  speak,  homogeneous.  A 
man  who  masters  the  first  book  of  Euclid  and  stops  there 
has  exercised  his  mind  in  the  same  way  (however  different 
the  degree)  as  the  wrangler  who  is  good  in  geometry  of  three 
dimensions.  But  in  some  the  different  stages  have  no  more 
in  common  than  ploughing  a  field  and  eating  bread.  The 
study  of  Greek  is  of  the  latter  kind.  The  Greek  scholar  is 
immensely  benefited  in  two  ways.  He  understands,  and  can 
to  some  extent  manipulate  for  himself,  the  most  perfect  instru- 
ment for  expressing  thought  ever  known  to  men.  Next,  he 
is  enabled  to  understand  magnificent  conceptions  conveyed 
to  him  by  means  of  this  perfect  instrument.  He  profits  then 
by  his  knowledge  of  the  language  and  by  his  study  of  the 
literature.  But  the  early  stages  of  the  study  convey  neither 
of  these  benefits.  There  is  no  magic  in  6  t)  to  more  than 
in  fee-fi-fo-fum.  Some  schoolmasters,  indeed,  maintain  tliat 
drudgery  is  good  for  boys,  and  therefore  the  complicated 
Greek  accidence  is  specially  good.  They  commend  it  to 
their  pui)ils  as  Fluellen  commended  the  leak  to  Pistol.  But 
this  kind  of  pedagogy  is  rather  old-foshioned  and  discredited. 


Compulsory  Greek  255 

It  is  now  pretty  well  agreed  that  the  learning  of  grammatical 
forms  is  not  a  good  thing  in  itself  Unfortunately  the  Greek 
forms  are  peculiarly  difficult  and  cannot  be  learnt  without  a 
great  expenditure  of  time.  This  time  is  well  spent  when  it 
bears  fruit  in  the  intelligent  study  of  Greek  authors,  but  it  is 
thrown  away  when  the  pupil  never  gets  beyond  the  stage  of 
stumbling  through  a  few  pages  of  Greek  by  aid  of  a  crib. 

"  Now  the  University,  in  fixing  the  minimum  required,  fixes 
the  maximum  that  will  be  aimed  at  by  a  vast  number  of  stu- 
dents who  either  seek  to  get  a  degree  on  the  lowest  possible 
terms,  or  who  grudge  every  hour  they  are  compelled  to  take 
from  other  subjects.  At  present  the  University  requires  just 
that  amount  of  Greek  which  involves  the  getting  up  of  difficult 
grammatical  forms  but  does  not  involve  the  employment 
of  this  knowledge  to  any  good  purpose.  There  is  a  notion 
in  some  people's  minds  that  a  University  degree  is  a  proof 
that  the  graduate  has  received  a  liberal  education,  and  a 
liberal  education,  they  say,  must  include  Greek.  But  Greek 
is  not  exactly  a  fixed  quantity.  How  much  Greek?  The 
power  to  translate  easy  Greek  at  sight?  No,  not  so  much  as 
that.  The  power  to  translate  the  best-known  Greek  classics? 
No,  not  so  much  as  that.  The  power  to  translate  one  of 
them?  No,  not  so  much  as  that.  But  a  man  cannot  be 
pronounced  to  have  received  a  liberal  education  until,  with 
the  assistance  of  Mr  Bohn  and  a  Little-go  coach,  he  has  got 
by  heart  a  translation  of  a  fraction  of  some  Greek  author  in 
verse  and  of  another  in  prose,  and  until  he  knows  enough 
of  the  grammatical  forms  to  connect  the  English  with  the 
Greek,  and  very  seldom  to  take  the  verb  for  the  substantive 
or  vice  versa.  These  conditions  satisfied,  the  liberal  educa- 
tion in  my  day  was  complete  as  far  as  Greek  was  concerned. 
]\Iany  of  us  never  looked  at  a  Greek  character  again.  They 
accjuired  enough  mathematics  for  a  Junior  Optime,  and  the 
University,  quite  satisfied  with  such  attainments,  admitted  them 
in  due  course  to  any  degree  they  cared  to  pay  for." 


256  R.  H.  Quick 


Multiplicity  of  Studies 

"  In  the  Journal  of  Education  for  August,  '81,  is  a  paper 
by  C.  Colbeck  on  this  subject. 

"  What  would  have  been  said  of  such  a  paper  when  I 
went  up  to  Cambridge?  But  nobody  could  possibly  have 
written  it  then.  Colbeck  considers  the  dethronement  of  the 
Classics  2.  fait  accompli,  and  he  wants  all  studies  to  be  allowed 
and  none  specially  honoured.  When  I  went  to  Cambridge 
Classics  and  Mathematics  were  established  in  the  Senate- 
House,  just  as  port  and  sherry  ('red'  and  'white')  in  the 
Common  Rooms.  The  Moral  and  Natural  Sciences  Triposes 
were  attempted  for  the  first  time  the  year  I  went  up,  i.e.  in 
1850,  but  they  were  thought  little  of,  and  St  John's  was 
considered  bold  in  recognizing  that  Liveing's  place  in  the 
Natural  Science  Tripos  should  be  considered  in  his  claim 
for  a  fellowship.  Of  course  he  would  not  have  been  elected 
unless  he  had  been  a  high  wrangler  and  fair  classic  as  well." 


Public  opinion  a  hindrance  to  education 

"15.  8.  81.  Education,  in  this  country  at  least,  depends 
on  public  opinion,  and  I  don't  see  how  progress  is  possible  ; 
for  if  anything  is  to  be  learnt  about  education,  it  must  be 
learnt  by  special  study,  and  the  mass  of  people  whose  opinion 
is  public  opinion  cannot  perhaps,  will  not  certainly,  give  the 
subject  any  study.  Tlie  consequence  is  that  we  can  never 
get  beyond  prima  facie  views.  '  It  is  useful  to  be  able  to 
read  and  write,  therefore  the  sooner  a  child  can  read  and 
write  the  better.'  This  is  the  prima  facie  view.  Study  of 
the  subject  leads  one  to  a  different  conception  of  'useful,' 
but  public  opinion  can  never  have  any  but  the  prima  facie 
notion.     A.  H.,  a  person  of  ordinary  education  and  ordinary 


General  ignorance  of  Pedagogics         257 

intelligence,  informed  his  boy,  wlio  was  attending  a  Kinder- 
garten, that  he  learnt  nothing  bnt  rubbish  there.  This  of 
course  the  child  went  and  communicated  to  the  Kinder- 
gartnerin,  and  the  thing  was  considered  a  splendid  joke, 
though  not,  I  fear,  by  the  poor  Kindergartnerin.  A.  H. 
does  not  seem  to  have  thought  for  an  instant  that  his  first 
crude  notion  might  possibly  be  less  near  the  truth  than  that 
of  Froebel,  which  is  affecting  the  training  of  young  children 
over  a  good  part  of  the  civilized  world.  That  A.  H.,  without 
any  conviction  on  the  subject,  should  look  up  to  Froebel  as  an 
apostle  could  not  be  expected,  but  he  surely  might  treat  the 
conclusions  of  an  expert  with  some  respect.  While  the  pubhc 
supposes  that  it  can  get  at  the  whole  truth  on  educational 
matters  prima  facie  (and  that  is,  and  is  likely  to  be,  its 
conviction),  I  don't  see  how  progress  is  possible.  The/r/wa 
facie  view  must  always  be  the  same." 

Infor/nation 

"  25.  8.  82.  We  are  haunted  by  an  incessant  clamour  for 
positive  knowledge.  The  parents,  when  they  suddenly  wake 
up  to  an  interest  in  their  children's  progress  at  school,  try  to 
test  it  by  such  questions  as  'What  is  the  capital  of  Brazil?' 
or  'What  was  the  name  of  Henry  VIII. 's  last  wife?'  Then 
the  headmaster  allots  a  defined  body  of  knowledge  which  boys 
shall  store  away  in  such  a  shape  that  they  may  be  able  to 
produce  it  when  the  examiner  comes  to  inspect  it.  A  full 
portmanteau  on  the  inspection  day,  that's  the  only  thing 
thought  of.  What  is  to  become  of  the  contents  or  of  the 
portmanteau  itself  afterwards  nobody  ever  troubles  himself  to 
think." 

Early  intellectual  impressions 

"  One  ought  to  magnify  one's  office  more  than  one  is  wont 
to.  The  humdrum  of  exercise  correction,  testing  of  prepara- 
tion of  work,  &c.,  often  conceals  from  one  the  real  impression 


258  R.  H.  Quick 

of  one's  calling.  Perhaps  we  have  not  much  influence  with 
boys,  but  we  must  have  some,  and  how  tremendously  im- 
portant all  influences  are  which  act  on  the  boy  or  young 
man.  Before  twenty-five  we  furnish  our  minds  or,  to  change 
the  metaphor,  we  take  in  the  stoff  which  we  afterwards  work 
up.  I  am  reminded  of  this  by  reading  of  Kleber's  'Vous 
vous  ferez  tuer  la  ! '  In  the  winter  of  '46  (more  than  twenty 
years  ago  !)  I  read  up  some  of  the  Napoleon  Buonaparte  as 
a  holiday  task,  and  Napoleon's  marshals  have  been  acquaint- 
ances of  mine  ever  since.  How  many  books  have  I  read  as 
a  man  of  which  I  retain  no  impression  whatever  !  It  may  be 
everything  leaves  some  impression,  but  the  early  impressions 
are  the  important  ones." 


Words  and  books  have  different  meanings  at  different 
times  of  life 

"  Nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  different  effects  of 
the  same  words  on  different  people,  nay,  on  the  same  people 
at  different  times.  It  has  happened  to  me  to  read  a  book 
on  education  of  which  I  might  have  been  supposed  a  fair 
critic.  I  decided  that  the  book  was  worthless.  Some  two 
or  three  years  later  I  took  it  up  by  chance  and  thought  it 
most  valuable.  So,  too,  particular  parts  of  the  Bible  have  at 
times  a  wonderful  power  over  us,  and  then  we  lose  it  again. 
Before  I  went  to  Cambridge  —  when  I  was  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen —  I  could  hardly  get  out  of  my  head  the  words  '  No  man 
that  warreth  entangleth  himself  with  the  affairs  of  this  life,' 
and  if  I  had  been  a  Roman  Catholic  I  should  probably  have 
taken  monastic  vows  under  their  influence.  The  really  great 
and  the  really  good  get,  not  a  temporary,  but  permanent  vision 
of  some  great  truths,  and  their  office  is  to  animate  these  truths 
for  others. 

"  As,  then,  we  find  that  our  own  minds  are  susceptible 
to  different  truths  at  different  times,  we  need  not   be  much 


Teachers  should  be  opportune  259 

surprised  that  boys'  minds  are  not  as  a  rule  susceptible  to  the 
truths  which  interest  us.  All  educators  seem  to  find  that  this 
is  so.  Teachers  in  general  have  been  led  to  making  pupils 
learn  by  heart  what  they  may  feel  interested  in  some  day  or 
other.  This  is  easy ;  but  it  would  clearly  be  better  if  we  could 
find  or  render  some  truth  interesting  to  boys." 

Teaching  of  English 

"  I  do  not  yet  despair  of  finding  in  this  subject  the  means 
of  exercising  boys'  intelligence.  But  if  one  would  do  so,  one 
must  utterly  abstain  from  notes  and  explanations.  I  have 
just  looked  over  some  answers  to  questions  on  Richard  II. 
Wherever  the  boys  could  do  so,  they  vomited  the  note  just 
as  they  had  swallowed  it.  When  there  was  no  note,  they 
showed  they  had  not  understood  the  passage." 

Learning  English  through  the  Classics 

"  We  hear  a  great  deal  about  our  own  language  being  best 
learnt  through  the  study  of  the  classics.  I  don't  know  how 
far  this  may  be  true  of  a  few  exceptional  boys,  but  the  average 
boy  translates  in  this  way.  [Here  follows  a  specimen  school- 
boy rendering  of  Caesar.]  Whether  linguistic  practice  of  this 
kind  be  after  all  of  such  great  value  is  a  question  which  must 
sometimes  suggest  itself  to  the  strongest  adherent  of  classical 
training." 

Ohne  Lie  be  kein  Lehren 

"  24.  3.  83.  '  Stray  Papers  on  Education  by  B.  H.'  has 
been  sent  me  from  the  Academy  to  review.  In  reading  the 
papers  one  sees  what  a  splendid  work  school  keeping  is  for  a 
loving  and  wise  spirit.  This  lady  has  grasped  a  truth  than 
which    none    can    be    more    important    or   more    commonly 


26o  R.  H.   Quick 

neglected  —  that  moral  training  is  prior  to  intellectual.  'With- 
out love  we  can  never  be  a  warm,  winning,  loving  influence  to 
which  a  child  clings  with  all  the  tender  strength  of  child 
nature'  (p.  5).  The  expression  here  might  be  better:  we 
cannot  cling  to  an  influence  :  but  the  thought  could  not  be 
juster. 

"  At  Guildford  I  used  to  feel  that  I  did  not  care  enough 
for  my  boys  to  influence  them  properly.  Various  causes  com- 
bined to  put  me  out  of  sympathy  with  them,  but  I  felt  that 
I  had  lost  touch  of  my  school  and  did  not  influence  my  boys 
as  I  should  have  done. 

"  But  it  might  be  said  it  is  quite  impossible  for  a  master  in 
a  large  school  to  love  his  pupils ;  he  can  never  know  them  well 
enough.  You  might  as  well  say  a  drill-sergeant  couldn't  teach 
drill  without  loving  his  recruits.  No  doubt  masters  in  large 
schools  do  become  too  much  masters  of  intellectual  drill,  or 
even  of  memory  drill,  the  necessities  of  the  case  making 
drilling  their  function.  But  the  higher  influences  can  be 
exercised  only  through  sympathy  and  a  feeling  related  to  love. 
It  may  be  love  of  a  class  rather  than  of  an  individual,  but  if  a 
man  didn't  '  like  boys '  he  would  be  powerless  except  for 
routine  work.  Of  course  when  a  man  does  '  like  boys  '  he  will 
sometimes  have  to  do  with  individuals  whom  he  dislikes,  and 
he  has  perhaps  great  difficulty  in  keeping  this  dislike  from 
showing  itself.  But  if  he  sympathises  with  boys  as  a  class  he 
will  have  formed  some  notion  of  how  to  treat  them,  and  this 
notion  will  guide  him  even  in  the  unfortunate  exceptions." 

'  Skewing  Boys ' 

"  One  of  my  most  vivid  school  memories  is  of  a  new  master 
at  Scofield's  when  I  was  about  ten  years  old.  We  were  to 
begin  Propria  quae  viaribus  with  him,  and  to  our  horror  he 
never  prompted  us  with  a  word,  but  '  skewed '  us  as  soon  as 
we  stumbled.      The  consequence  was  that  we  went  to  work  in 


ThoroiLghness  261 

a  very  different  way  from  what  we  had  been  accustomed  to.  I 
ground  most  tremendously  at  the  Propria,  and  the  first  lessons 
I  learnt  in  it  I  could  have  said  20  years  afterwards,  though  30 
have  been  too  many  for  it.  As  a  boy  I  resolved  that  this  was 
the  way  to  hear  lessons,  but  the  passive  resistance  of  one's 
boys  seems  to  make  this  impossible.  With  Reps  of  course  one 
might  adopt  this  plan,  but  then  there  are  some  boys  who  have 
a  real  difficulty  in  learning  by  heart,  and  one  gets  into  the 
habit  of  relaxing.  In  the  matter  of  Reps  the  best  plan  seems 
to  be  to  have  things  said  again  and  again.  But  with  con- 
struing—  here  one  knows  that  one's  boys  ought  to  have  the 
piece  thoroughly  well  prepared,  and,  if  a  fellow  hesitates,  take 
it  as  a  proof  that  he  does  not  know  his  work  properly.  And 
yet  one  shrinks  from  turning  boys  as  one  should.  Partly  this 
comes  from  consideration  (false  consideration,  I  think)  for  the 
boys,  and  partly  from  consideration  for  oneself  It  is  such  a 
fearful  nuisance  to  have  one's  scanty  leisure  eaten  up  with 
turned  boys.  A  boy  or  two  is  sure  not  to  come,  and  then 
there  is  a  terrible  amount  of  thought  and  trouble  necessary  or 
things  get  slack." 

Understanding  boys 

Beatiis  qui  intelUgit,  Ps.  xli.  i 

"The  understanding  of  mankind  is  not  so  easy  as  we 
sometimes  imagine ;  for  it  involves  self-knowledge  which  is 
hard  to  get,  and  self-discipline  which  is  hard  to  maintain.  It 
is  in  this  understanding  of  boys  that  we  teachers  mostly  fail. 
The  truth  is  we  want  something  more  than  self-knowledge  and 
self-discipline  even.  We  want  love.  Kindliness  we  have,  and 
we  gladly  do  anything  for  our  boys  which  obviously  needs 
doing.  We  have,  too,  enough  conscientiousness  about  our 
work  to  spend  a  great  deal  of  time  and  care  on  it,  though 
perhaps  we  are  so  accustomed  to  failure  that  we  accept  it  too 
contentedly.     But  our  great  defect  is  that  boys  to  us  are  too 


262  R.  H.  Quick 

much  pupils  to  be  taught  languages  and  such  like,  and  not 
human  beings  whose  character  and  affections  will  be  influenced 
by  intercourse  with  us.  As  a  rule,  we  do  not  understand  boys, 
and  we  do  not  care  enough  about  them  to  try  to." 

Self-improvement 

"  The  title  of  Watts's  '  On  the  Improvement  of  the  Mind ' 
called  up  early  reminiscences  of  times  when  one  was  keen  on 
self-improvement.  The  Saturday  Review  said  the  other  day 
that  nobody  over  thirty  thought  of  self-improvement.  Without 
entirely  agreeing  to  this,  I  feel  the  truth  and  importance  of  the 
converse  statement  that  people  under  thirty  think  a  great  deal 
of  self-improvement.  This  might  give  us  a  considerable  power 
if  we  could  only  get  to  know  what  sort  of  self-improvement 
each  boy  wishes.  But  here,  as  in  so  many  things,  one  is  pain- 
fully conscious  how  little  one  understands  boys.  Each  boy  has 
a  range  of  hopes  and  fears,  likes  and  dislikes,  yearnings  after 
some  kind  of  good,  and  efforts  both  successful  and  unsuccess- 
ful towards  it,  which  all  make  up  a  ten-a  incognita  to  us.  Just 
as  a  drill-sergeant  gets  to  look  on  recruits  as  automata 
capable  of  being  more  or  less  successfully  put  through  certain 
motions,  so  we  masters  get  to  regard  boys  almost  exclu- 
sively with  reference  to  their  capacity  (a  very  limited  one, 
alas !)  of  doing  certain  lessons.  One  of  the  remarkable 
changes  that  come  over  us  as  we  leave  boyhood  is  that  we 
lose  our  tendency  to  build  castles  in  the  air.  I  could  not 
now  amuse  myself,  I  have  long  been  unable  to  amuse  my- 
self, in  any  hypothetical  circumstances  by  thinking  what  I 
should  do.  Yet  from  very  early  childhood  up  to  manhood  this 
was  my  case  and  I  suppose  it  is  generally  a  favourite  occupa- 
tion." 

Study  of  Educational  Il'riters 

"  One  of  the  main  things  one  gets  from  such  study  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  problems  of  one's  occupation  —  e.g.  should 


Study  of  Educational   Writei's  26 


j> 


grammar  be  explanatory  or  not  ?  Scholars  find  explanation  of 
phenomena  either  in  the  history  of  the  language  or  the 
working  of  the  mind,  and  these  explanations  are  a  great  help 
to  their  memory.  They  therefore  give  such  explanations  in 
their  grammars.  Then  we  are  told  that  such  explanations  are 
useless  when  the  phenomena  themselves  are  not  familiar.  All 
you  want  at  first  is  an  explanation  of  facts.  So  Dupanloup 
and  Matthew  Arnold  even  praise  Lhomond.  Then  conies 
Br^al  and  says  you  are  damaging  boys'  intelligence  and  giving 
simply  phenomena  and  ignoring  explanations.  Br^al  says  the 
professeur  has  not  as  good  a  chance  as  the  viaitre  cfctiides,  for 
the  time  to  be  with  boys  is  at  preparation,  ^^'hatever  the  pro- 
fesseur may  do  '  la  force  motrice  est  hors  de  la  classe,  laquelle 
marche  a  la  remorque  de  I'^tude  '  (in  tow  of  the  preparation). 
Another  great  advantage  one  gets  by  reading  educational 
literature  is  that  one  gets  to  look  at  things  with  a  freshness 
which  is  impossible  if  one  knows  of  no  theory  or  practice 
but  one's  own.  We  have  the  stereotyped  way  of  going  on 
in  school.  Such  and  such  lessons  have  to  be  set  so  and  so, 
and  brought  u})  prepared  so  and  so.  This  seems  to  us  the 
course  of  nature.  But  then  comes  a  man  Hke  Br6al  and  says, 
'  The  instructor  is  he  who  sets  the  boys'  minds  to  work.'  This 
will  not  be  done  by  the  mere  saying  of  prepared  lessons.  Put 
something  before  the  boys  and  get  their  minds  to  work  upon 
it  then  and  there.  This  will  be  much  better  for  them  than 
their  carrying  a  lot  of  stuff  in  their  memories  as  in  a  wheel- 
barrow and  shooting  it  down  before  you  in  school,  then 
going  away  with  light  heart  and  lightened  mind." 


II  Feb.  1879.     Experience  iintriisttvoriliy  zoithout  scientific 
record 

"Talking  with  T^r  F.  Payne  just  now  I  was  struck  with 
what  he  said  about  the  pre-scientific  stage  of  schoolmasters' 
experience.      E.xperience   not   brought   to   book,   but   merely 


264  ^.   //.   Quick 

giving  an  impression,  is  next  to  worthless.  One  man  says  it 
is  his  experience  that  it  ahvays  comes  on  to  rain  if  he  doesn't 
take  out  an  umbrella ;  another  that  his  experience  tells  him  to 
expect  a  hard  winter  when  he  sees  plenty  of  berries.  Such 
experiences  may  be  given  bona  fide,  but  they  are  worthless.  A 
doctor  says  that  he  has  always  found  lemon  juice  good  for 
rheumatism.  This  is  valueless  ;  but  if  he  takes  notes  and  says, 
'  I  have  given  lemon  juice  to  100  cases  and  in  80  it  has  seemed 
to  do  good,'  his  evidence  is  of  some  value.  The  schoolmaster 
says  perhaps,  '  I  have  always  found  boys  who  began  Greek  late 
succeed  in  the  study  of  Greek.'  This  is  valueless.  He  should 
take  notes  of  his  cases.  Another  thing  that  doctors  have 
learnt  is  to  observe  and  note  collateral  circumstances.  At  one 
time  in  making  a  post  mortem  they  simply  noted  the 
immediate  cause  of  death ;  now  they  note  the  condition  of 
all  the  parts.  In  registering  progress  of  boys  the  school- 
master should  not  omit,  e.g.,  to  mention  any  illness,  though 
it  occurred  in  the  holidays.  It  may  have  made  a  great 
difference  in  the  child's  rate  of  development." 

Different  types  of  Masters 

"  A  great  many  things  go  to  the  making  of  a  good  master, 
but  failing  the  absolutely  good,  one  may  get  good  men  of  their 
kind  and  the  kind  may  differ  very  widely. 

"  One  type  is  the  good  driver.  He  gets  a  good  bit  of  work 
out  of  his  boys  and  is  respected  by  them.  He  must  too  be 
feared  by  them,  or  he  will  not  drive  properly.  Of  course  it  is 
easy  to  point  out  that  the  highest  kind  of  work  cannot  thus  be 
forced.  It  is  so  no  doubt,  but  a  great  deal  of  work  can  be 
forced,  and  the  boys  will  be  the  better  for  it.  A  boy  would 
naturally  rather  be  reading  novels  or  '  bally-ragging  '  than  learn- 
ing repetition,  though  he  may  have  no  repugnance  to  the 
repetition.  Then  the  consciousness  that  he  will  catch  it  if  he 
*  skews '  directs  his  energies  into  the  right  direction.     I  wish  I 


Types  of  Masters  265 

were  a  better  driver,  but  I  am  very  weak  in  this  line,  and  really 
can't  get  work  done  in  this  way. 

"  Another  type  is  the  cramming  master  who  asks  boys  the 
right  things  so  often  that  they  get  to  know  them  without  any 
exercise  of  their  own  will,  A  boy  doesn't  care  a  button 
about  strong  and  weak  verbs,  say.  Well,  I  go  on  asking  him 
about  them,  and  making  him  conjugate  strong  verbs  and  weak 
till  at  last  he  can't  help  knowing  them.  If  the  crammer 
seizes  on  the  right  things  he  gets  a  certain  amount  into  boys 
who  would  learn  in  no  other  way.  In  language  teaching  one 
is  driven  to  cram  in  a  certain  amount  in  this  way. 

"  Next  comes  the  man  who  can  rouse  his  boys'  emulation. 
This  brings  out  much  more  of  the  boys'  faculties  and  makes 
the  work  go  with  a  will. 

"  The  highest  kind  of  master  is  he  who  gets  boys  to  work 
either  because  they  like  the  master  or  like  the  work.  One 
ought  to  make  much  more  of  personal  influence.  Boys  will  do 
anything  for  a  man  when  an  individual  relationship  has  been 
set  up  between  them.  If  the  master  wishes  to  get  this  influence 
he  must  make  the  boys  feel  that  he  looks  at  each  boy  as  an 
individual  and  not  merely  as  one  of  a  class.  Private  talks  with 
boys  are  very  valuable  in  this  way,  especially  when  the  master 
can  find  anything  to  praise.  But  conscious  as  I  am  of  all  this, 
and  being  as  I  am  on  the  most  friendly  footing  with  the  boys, 
I  live  in  such  a  muddle  that  I  don't  seem  to  have  time  and 
attention  to  give  to  the  individual  boy." 

An  Apology  for  Didactic  Teaching 

"  It  seems  almost  impossible  for  one  mind  to  be  alive  to 
opposite  dangers.  I  am  thoroughly  impressed  with  the 
mischief  of  '  didactic  teaching.'  The  old  simile  of  a  narrow- 
necked  bottle  under  a  pump  seems  to  me  to  apply  exactly. 
The  consequence  is  that  I  say  very  little,  and  hardly  expect 
my  boys  to  remember  the  little  I  do  say.     I  probably  should 


266  R.  H.  Quick 

be  a  bad  lecturer  if  I  tried  to  lecture,  but  I  never  do  try.  I 
aim  exclusively  at  getting  l)oys'  minds  to  work  at  things,  in 
other  words  at  developing  power,  but  it  ends  more  or  less 
in  their  having  to  remember  what  they  get  straight  out  of 
their  books.  And  my  contempt  for  cram  really  leads  almost 
to  the  slighting  of  knowledge.  But  the  receptive  faculties  of 
the  mind  must  after  all  be  of  some  use.  The  parable  of  the 
Sower  has  no  meaning  to  anyone  who  takes  an  extreme  line 
against  didactic  teaching.  Such  a  one  seems  to  say,  '  Never 
mind  seed :  plough  and  harrow  and  manure  the  land  and  the 
land  will  not  want  for  seed.'  But  it  may  want  seed,  and  seed 
may  take  root  and  bear  fruit  even  when  we  hardly  expect  it. 
I  believe  I  constantly  make  a  great  mistake  in  not  reading 
more  and  seeking  more  intellectual  nourishment.  The  fact  of 
my  Hking  reading  gives  it  to  me  the  appearance  of  amusement 
and  I  don't  indulge  in  it  because  I  have  some  work  un- 
finished. 

"  Of  course  when  we  come  to  giving  information,  one 
teacher  gets  the  mind  of  the  pupils  to  receive  impressions  from 
his  mind,  another  affects  the  ears  and  the  sensorium  (isn't  that 
the  word?)  only.  Generally  speaking,  I  belong  to  the  latter 
class.  This  morning  I  talked  about  the  chapter  in  St  Luke 
(the  last)  which  the  boys  had  prepared.  By  questions  I  after- 
wards found  that  very  few  boys  had  even  been  thinking  of 
what  I  was  saying :  e.g.  I  pointed  out  that  Christ  must 
have  overtaken,  not  met,  the  two  disciples  going  to  Emmaus ; 
yet  five  minutes  after  hardly  a  boy  knew  this.  Sometimes  I 
wonder  whether  it  is  possible  that  boys  do  not  know  the 
answers  to  simple  questions,  and  whether  the  reason  of  their 
not  answering  is  simply  that  they  prefer  letting  their  thoughts 
wander  and  not  even  asking  themselves  whether  they  can 
answer  or  not.  One  might  partially  detect  this  by  asking 
occasionally  '  What  was  the  question  ? '  but  not  wholly,  for  boys 
retain  for  some  time  the  sound  of  the  words  they  have  heard, 
though    they  have  not  thought  of  the  meaning.     I  am  much 


Didactic   Teaching  267 

more  inclired  to  attribute  this  state  of  things  to  my  own  bad 
teaching  than  to  the  boys'  dulness,  for  all  boys  cannot  be  dull, 
and  yet  there  is  only  one  boy  in  the  form,  or  two  at  most,  on 
whom  I  can  count  for  intelligent  answers,  and  even  these  boys 
are  not  always  awake." 

Mechanical  advantages 

"Thring's  great  discovery  seems  to  have  been  the  im- 
portance of  machinery.  *  Machinery  won't  give  life.'  True 
enough,  and  perhaps  machinery  is  often  used  to  conceal  the 
want  of  life,  but  more  commonly  life  is  wasted  for  want  of 
machinery.  The  more  vigorous  the  master  the  more  danger 
there  seems  of  his  turning  vital  force  into  merely  mechanical 
functions.  There  is  here  a  terrible  waste  from  bad  arrange- 
ments about  exercises,  «ScC.,  and  all  suffer  from  this  waste. 
Where  forms  are  very  large  mechanical  advantages  must  be 
obtained  somehow.  In  the  Cowper  Street  Schools  they  have 
fifty  or  more  in  a  form.  Jowitt  tells  me  the  class-room  is 
fitted  up  with  a  frame  in  which  the  exercise  books  can  be 
displayed  open  side  by  side.  The  boys,  when  they  come  in, 
stick  up  their  exercises.  The  master  walks  round,  sees  the 
neatness  and  kind  of  exercise  at  a  glance.  The  boys  take 
their  books,  and  the  master  goes  over  the  exercises  with 
them." 

Interest  the  mainspring  of  teaching 

"  I  have  thought  a  good  deal  about  the  way  to  teach 
language,  but  after  all  any  way  would  do  if  one  could  excite 
in  the  pupil  an  eager  desire  to  learn,  and  no  way  is  good 
for  much  without  this.  Perhaps,  inileed,  there  are  limits. 
There  might  be  some  waste  of  force  in  a  bad  method  with 
the  most  eager  pupils,  and  something  may  be  hammered  into 
careless  pupils  by  constant  repetition  of  the  most  important 
things.  Still  enthusiasm  is  the  thing  wanted,  and  this  is  what 
in  school  work  one  fails  to  get.     When  the  mind  is  aroused 


268  7?.   //.   Quick 

and  is  on  the  lookout  to  observe  and  compare  and  store 
up,  it  accjuires  rapidly  things  that  no  amount  of  teaching 
can  knock  in.  As  1  )r  Brown  says,  'Secure  the  help  of  the 
resident  teacher.  'I'he  different  ways  of  teaching  may  be 
compared  to  the  different  forms  of  religion.  The  end  of 
teaching  is  to  excite  the  mind  to  work  on  the  subject  taught 
and  to  take  it  in.'  Now,  even  supposing  the  Roman  Catholic 
were  the  infixllible  Church,  it  would  clearly  be  better  to  be  a 
(hiaker  with  love  than  a  Roman  Catholic  without.  And  so 
the  pupil  who  is  interested  will  learn  more  on  the  worst  system 
than  the  miinterested  pupil  on  the  best." 

Argumenta  ad puerum 

"There  is  one  person  about  whom  everyone  feels  an 
interest  and  is  very  keen  to  hear  remarks  about  him  —  every- 
one takes  an  interest  in  himself.  This  gives  the  teacher  a 
power  of  which  he  may  make  very  great  use.  If  he  can 
study  the  boys  as  individuals,  he  will  often  be  able  to  send 
a  shaft  right  into  the  bull's-eye  by  feathering  it  with  a  per- 
sonal allusion.  The  other  day  I  remarked  that  very  few 
boys  showed  intelligence  in  map-drawing,  and  that  I  only 
remembered  two  or  three  boys  who  had  been  remarkably 
good  in  this  respect,  all  of  whom  had  left.  There  were,  I 
said,  a  few  still  here  whose  maps  were  fairly  intelligent,  but 
not  so  good  as  those  of  Munro,  &c.,  wlio  had  left.  The 
boys  pricked  up  their  ears  at  this,  and  wanted  to  know  who 
the  present  boys  were.  I  decHned  to  say.  To-day  I  think 
I  see  the  effect  of  this  in  some  fairly  successful  efforts  to  show 
intelligence  in  maps  of  St  Paul's  journeys  just  done." 

A^o  nagging 

"  I  beheve  no  one  can  teach  boys  well  or  even  tolerably 
so  long  as  he  has  the  least  feeling  of  annoyance  towards 
them.  It  is  perhaps  more  fatal  for  the  master  to  be  irritated 
with  the  boys  and  out  of  sympathy  with  them,  than  for  the 


Sympathetic   Teaching  269 

boys  to  disiike  the  master.  It  is  very  odd  to  hear  men  who 
have  been  teaching  years  and  years  go  on  nevertheless  de- 
chiiming  against  boys'  idleness,  as  if  they  had  just  made 
a  brand-new  discovery  about  them.  I  have  feU  about  my 
Germm  class  that  the  cause  of  failure  could  not  be  in  the 
boys;  they  are  the. constant  quantity  (at  least  approximately 
constant)  in  the  problem,  and  the  variables  are  the  teacher 
and  the  system  of  teaching.  My  irritation  has  arisen  partly 
from  overwork  and  want  of  relaxation,  partly  from  constant 
headaches,  partly  from  being  victimised  by  a  wretched  time- 
table. Then,  as  the  boys  haven't  got  on  a  bit,  my  irrita- 
tion has  extended  to  them,  and  the  whole  thing  has  been 
a  wretched  failure ....  The  main  thing  is  to  take  one's  boys 
with  one,  to  make  them  feel  (as  they  easily  may)  that  one 
is  anxious  to  get  them  on  and  is  inieirsteti  in  them.  The 
hammering,  scolding,  unsympathetic  line  is  the  ruin  of  every- 
thing—  has  been  the  ruin  of  much  of  my  teaching.  ...  It  is 
a  great  mistake  to  say  that  boys  are  idle.  Boys  are  not  idle. 
They  are  easily  discouraged  ;  they  conjure  up  all  sorts  of 
difficulties  and  they  lack  energy  of  thought,  but  so  long  as 
you  give  them  Avork  they  can  do,  they  take  a  pleasure  in 
doing  it.  Sums,  for  instance,  they  will  grind  away  at  by  the 
hour  ;  but,  as  I  said,  they  can't  think  things  out,  and  they 
do  not  understand  going  over  the  same  ground  again  and  again 
until  they  have  mastered  a  subject.  They  don't  know  what 
thorough  knowledge  is,  and  they  are  always  wanting  to  get  on." 

A  moot  point     {Principles  v.   i-otitine.     Feb.   25,  '75) 

"  What  terribly  puzzle-headed  creatures  we  are,  content  to 
go  on  in  a  fog  without  making  any  effort  to  get  out  of  it. 
For  myself,  I  think  this  or  that  according  to  my  last  ex- 
perience or  authority,  an  1  don't  seem  to  have  come  into  the 
clear  on  any  subject  —  least  of  all  on  education. 

"The  other  day  I  was  talking  with  Seeley.     He  doubted 


2  70  R.  H.  Quick 

the  wisdom  of  systematising  a  child's  occupations,  as  Froebel 
would  do :  things  should  not  be  cut  and  dried.  With  his 
own  child  he  teaches  just  what  offers  ;  lets  her  point  out  on 
the  map  where  the  Spaniards  live,  where  the  Russians  &c., 
where  the  word  Ocean  is,  and  so  on.  He  says  that  words 
may  best  be  dealt  with  as  things  by  themselves.  If  dog,  cat 
are  taken,  the  child's  attention  is  drawn  from  the  word  to 
the  thing.  This,  of  course,  is  entirely  opposed  to  what  the 
chief  theorists  have  said  on  the  subject. 

"  Last  night  we  had  a  discussion  on  methods  of  teaching 
a  language  apropos  of  a  lecture  I  gave  last  week.  Mr  Payne 
pointed  out  afterwards  that  principles  were  hardly  touched 
upon.  Each  speaker  advocated  his  own  practice  without 
any  reference  to  principle.  'The  learner,'  says  Mr  Payne, 
'  is  lost  sight  of.'  Then  Mr  Payne  told  how  his  own  child 
had  taught  himself  to  read,  had  observed  for  himself,  com- 
pared his  observations,  and  so  on.  So  one  man  would  drill 
the  child  on  a  regular  system,  another  would  leave  it  to  itself 
and  watch,  and  the  third,  who  has  an  actual  child  to  deal 
with,  finds  himself  obliged  to  do  something,  and  in  fact  does 
just  what  happens  to  be  the  fashion. 

"  R.  Brudenell  Carter,  in  his  pamphlet  on  the  '  Artificial 
Production  of  Stupidity,'  argues  with  great  force  that  our 
school  teaching  does  more  harm  than  good.  This  certainly 
does  seem  the  case,  whether  one  considers  the  method  a 
priori  or  a  posteriori.  The  altogether  astounding  stupidity 
of  our  big  boys  about  their  school-work  would  be  impossible 
had  not  their  stupidity  been  carefully  nurtured.  And,  if  the 
teaching  of  highly  educated  men  has  this  effect,  how  much 
more  must  the  teaching  of  the  flabby,  half-educated  usher  or 
governess  produce  stupidity.  One  sees  and  feels  all  this  and 
would  gladly  cultivate  intelligence,  but  how  is  it  to  be  done? 
One  does  not  know.  Meanwhile  one  finds  oneself  with  a  lot 
of  boys  on  one's  hands,  and  they  have  to  be  tauglit  some- 
how.    One  cannot  wait  till  one  sees  how  principles  are  to  be 


Traiuijig  Colleges  271 

applied ;  one  must  go  on,  and  as  the  right  path  is  doubtful, 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  take  the  usual  one.  Yet  the 
usual  path  is  not  by  any  means  sure  to  be  the  right  one. 
People  get  blinded  by  their  business,  and  do  any  amount  of 
stupid  things  which  an  outsider  can  detect.  It  would  be 
easy  to  show  from  medicine,  from  architecture,  &:c.  how  use 
and  wont  blind  the  eyes.  Of  late  years  we  schoolmasters 
have  had  our  eyes  opened  to  some  absurdities.  The  use 
and  wont  of  three  centuries  has  not  preserved  the  custom 
of  making  small  boys  learn.  'Cum  duo  substantiva  diversae 
significationis,  &c.'  :  but  there  are  lots  of  similar  absurdities 
which  we  still  practise,  and  yet  we  scorn  outsiders  when  they 
tell  us  they  would  like  to  see  this  or  that  altered.  And  in 
doing  this  we  can  point  to  the  absurdities  which  the  ablest 
men  run  into  from  taking  '  principles  '  to  start  with  —  Ruskin, 
for  instance,  who  would  have  drawing  lessons  begin  with 
shading,  not  with  outlines  —  Pestalozzi,  again,  who  says  the 
child  should  be  taught  about  that  which  is  nearest,  therefore 
about  its  own  joints  and  liver.  In  instances  like  this  the 
principle  may  be  false,  or  the  inference  may  be  falsely  drawn 
from  it ;  but,  with  our  suspicion  of  abstract  principles,  we 
seldom  stop  to  consider  which  is  wrong,  the  principle  or  the 
inference,  and  we  go  straight  off  to  the  belief  that  use  and 
wont  is  the  only  safe  guide.  But  if  we  had  our  eyes  open 
for  them,  there  are  reductiones  ad  absurdian  here  too.  Surely 
in  education  they  abound.  The  ordinary  schoolboy  of  six- 
teen is  the  most  flagrant  reductio  ad  absui-diim  I  know  of. 
He  has  thoughts  and  interests  and  energies,  but  they  are 
not  connected  with  his  school-work.  The  master  tries  to  get 
him  to  think,  but  he  won't.  Something  must  be  done,  so,  as 
thought  seems  out  of  the  question,  the  boy  must  reproduce, 
and  by  practice  the  carrying  power  is  soon  developed.  The 
boy  loads  himself  with  a  lesson  of  any  kind,  comes  into 
school,  shoots  it  down  before  the  master,  and  is  delighted  to 
get  rid  of  it.     And,  absurd  as  this  is,  even  men  of  sense  and 


272  R.  H.   Quick 

culture  get  hardened  to  it  and  rest  satisfied  with  it.  We 
cannot  therefore  wonder  that  inferior  men  do  the  same. 
Then  every  few  years  the  jMibhc  wakes  up  to  the  fact  that 
things  are  unsatisfactory  and  a  great  effort  is  made,  but 
blind  energy  often  does  more  harm  than  good.  Bishop 
Fraser,  in  a  late  speech  at  Liverpool,  declared  his  opinion 
that  '  the  general  intelligence  of  our  schools  is  deteriorating ; 
there  is  not  really  so  much  intelligence  in  them  as  there  was 
five-and-twenty  years  ago.'  Education,  he  says,  is  becoming 
more  dry  and  mechanical,  more  and  more  a  matter  of  rou- 
tine. Again,  I  hear  that  the  percentage  of  failures  at  the 
London  ALitriculation  Examinations  goes  on  increasing.  So 
everybody  who  thinks  about  education  is  dissatisfied,  and  our 
dissatisfaction  inclines  us  to  '  do  something.'  Sir  J.  Kay 
Shuttleworth  and  others  are  now  trying  to  get  up  a  training 
college  for  secondary  masters.  But,  directly  we  come  to 
consider  what  we  mean  by  a  training  college,  we  are  at  sea 
again.  Truth  in  this,  as  in  most  subjects,  is  as  wild  as  the 
birds  in  November.  We  catch  sight  of  it  sometimes  in  the 
next  field,  but  we  get  no  chance  of  bagging  it.  The  only 
fact  I  seem  to  have  got  hold  of  is  that  our  primary  masters 
as  a  rule  go  to  work  in  a  more  workmanlike  fashion  than 
untrained  masters.  .  .  .  But  what  do  we  purpose  doing  by 
means  of  a  college  for  secondary  masters?  The  question 
immediately  arises,  What  class  of  secondary  masters  do  you 
mean?  There  is  a  good  deal  of  difference  between  a  Uni- 
versity first  class  man  and  an  usher  who  gets  ^40  a  year 
and  his  keep  for  looking  after  boys,  and  yet  both  may  be 
included  under  secondary  teachers,  and  so  may  infinite 
varieties  between  these  two  poles.  If  your  college  is  for 
the  upper  half,  you  have  knowledge  and  trained  intellec- 
tual powers  and  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  direct  them 
to  the  science  and  art  of  teaching.  If  your  college  is  for 
the  lower  half,  you  must  give  the  instruction  which  the 
students  will  have  to  give  their  pupils.     In  fact,  the  teaching 


Examination  and  Cramming  273 

of  teaching  will  be  only  a  subordinate  part  of  the  course. 
Which  of  these  lines  is  to  be  the  one  adopted?  No  doubt 
it  is  very  advisable  that  educators  should  themselves  be  edu- 
cated ;  but  if  we  undertake  to  supply  deficiencies  of  this 
kind  we  are  founding  a  teaching,  not  a  training  college ;  and, 
so  far  as  I  can  gather,  this  is  what  the  Ecole  Normale  Supe- 
rieure  is.  If  we  want  a  college  of  this  kind  we  need  have 
no  school  attached.  But  if  we  want  to  teach  the  art  of 
teaching,  the  practising  school  must  be  the  main  thing.  No 
art  can  be  taught  by  precepts.  The  teacher,  like  any  other 
artist,  must  see  how  the  proficient  works,  and  must  work 
himself  undet  his  direction." 

Cramming  (^apropos  of  a  lecture  by  Mr  Payne  at  the 
College  of  Preceptors,  May  12,  '75) 

"  The  right  thing  in  education  is  to  secure  the  intelligent 
action  of  the  mind,  i.e.  either  the  reason  or  the  imagination, 
on  a  subject.  When  the  mind  has  been  thus  exercised,  it 
will  be  sure  to  retain  the  knowledge  of  certain  facts  about 
that  subject,  and  the  absence  of  that  knowledge  proves  that 
the  mind  has  not  been  thus  exercised.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, the  converse  does  not  hold  ;  hence  the  connection  be- 
tween examinations  and  cramming.  Suppose  I  pay  a  visit 
to  a  primary  school.  I  want  to  know  whether  the  children 
take  an  intelligent  interest  in  their  surroundings  and  in  what 
goes  on  in  the  world.  I  ask  them  the  name  of  the  place 
they  are  in,  its  county,  the  nearest  large  towns,  &c.  I  ask 
them  whether  there  is  a  king  or  queen  on  the  throne,  what 
the  queen's  name  is,  who  is  her  Prime  Minister,  &c.  Now 
such  questions  give  me  the  means  of  finding  out  whether  the 
mind's  eye  is  open  or  not.  If  I  found  the  answers  good,  I 
might  go  on  and  ask  who  is  Home  Secretary,  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  &c.  Of  course  I  don't  think  that  the  names 
of  Mr  Cross  and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  are  especially  worth 


2  74  ^-  H.   Quick 

the  children's  knowing,  but  by  my  questions  I  should  pro- 
bably find  out  the  two  or  three  sharp  boys  who  take  an 
interest  in  politics.  My  tests  then  would  act  quite  satis- 
factorily. But  suppo.se  I  went  about  all  the  schools  of  a 
particular  neighbourhood,  asking  the  same  kind  of  questions, 
and  the  masters  got  a  notion  of  what  was  coming.  They 
would  immediately  make  their  children  learn  up  the  names 
of  the  whole  Cabinet.  I  should  then  find  that  the  smallest 
child  there  could  rattle  off  the  whole  list,  and  in  a  way  might 
be  said  to  know  more  than  I  did,  for  without  cramming  one 
knows  only  the  names  of  the  leading  politicians.  If  I  catch 
a  moth  and  show  it  to  a  friend  and  he  names  it  off-hand,  I 
am  probably  not  wrong  in  concluding  that  my  friend  knows 
about  moths,  and  of  course  the  more  uncommon  the  moth, 
the  more  might  be  inferred  from  his  acquaintance  with  it. 
But,  supposing  he  has  been  prepared  for  an  examination  on 
moths,  his  coach  may  have  crammed  him  in  the  particular 
genera  on  which  the  examiner  has  written  a  monograph,  so 
that  his  answer  would  be  worth  very  little.  This  shows  the 
weak  point  of  examinations.  .  .  .  Directly  you  make  the  ex- 
aminer one  man  and  the  instructor  another,  the  instructor 
has  to  prepare  his  pupils  to  impress  the  examiner,  and  their 
answers  may  be  no  real  index  of  their  knowledge  or  their  in- 
telligence. Still  a  competent  examiner  might  find  out  whether 
the  study  had  been  carried  on  with  interest  and  intelligence. 
He  might  do  this  even  by  paper-work,  and  still  more  easily 
by  viva  voce,  but  he  is  generally  required  to  do  what  is  in 
effect  incompatible  with  investigations  of  this  kind,  viz.  to 
award  marks  for  each  answer  and  arrange  the  examined  in 
order  of  merit.  In  his  anxiety  to  do  this  with  perfect  fair- 
ness, he  sets  questions  which  admit  of  the  most  definite 
answers,  and  if  the  answers  are  right,  gives  full  marks  for 
them.  So  in  most  subjects  the  examiner  tests  memory  (often 
mere  memory  of  words)  only,  and  the  crammed  do  much 
better  in  the  paper  than  those  who  have  studied  the  subject 


Experience  of  individual  boys  275 

intelligently.  The  bane  of  all  intellectual  instruction  is  then 
this,  that  memory-work  can  be  easily  tested  and  accurately 
marked  ;  other  efforts  of  the  mind  are  not  so  easily  tested, 
and  cannot  be  so  accurately  gauged.  I  myself  see  no  way 
of  escape  from  the  pernicious  influence  of  this  except  by 
taking  as  examination  subjects  only  such  things  as  cannot 
be  crammed  :  mathematics,  unprepared  translation,  compo- 
sition, and  the  like.  Such  things  as  history,  geography, 
English  literature,  should  be  taken  in  school  and  elsewhere 
as  unprepared  subjects,  the  teacher  seeking  to  interest  the 
pupils,  and  not  troubling  himself  about  any  test  of  results." 

Varied  expeiience  necessary  for  the  Teacher 

Herbart  discusses  the  question,  on  what  conditions  can 
pedagogic  discussion  be  useful,  and  lays  down  that  ( i )  there 
must  be  fixed  principles  to  start  from  and  to  test  everything  by ; 
(2)  everyone  who  speaks  must  have  had  pedagogic  experience, 
and  this  experience  must  have  been  acquired  from  pupils  of 
different  ages,  '  denn  kein  Alter  zeigt  die  Beschaffenheit  des 
andern.'  Now  nobody  here  [at  Harrow]  seems  to  think  of 
this  need  of  varied  experience.  I  myself  have  had  great 
opportunities,  but  have  made  very  poor  use  of  them.  All  my 
energy  (which  never  was  very  great)  has  gone  off  into  mere 
teaching.  I  like  boys'  society  and  do  take  an  interest  in  my 
fellows  after  a  fashion,  but  I  am  always  so  overwhelmed  with 
exercises  and  preparation  of  lessons,  &c.,  that  I  cannot  find 
time  for  the  study  of  the  individual  boy.  I  am  never  an 
dessus,  so  I  can't  spare  time  for  doing  what  I  am  really  fond  of 
doing  —  giving  attention  to  separate  boys.  The  other  day  at 
Harrow  I  found  that  John,  our  servant  boy,  did  not  know 
fractions.  In  two  lessons  I  made  him  understand  them  all 
right,  and  in  two  more  he  was  able  to  work  any  ordinary 
fraction  sum.  But  when  one  has  a  form  one  cannot  watch  the 
workings  of  the  individual  mind.     Form  teaching  is  a  thing  by 


276  R.  H.  Quick 

itself.  We  do  get  some  skill  in  thus  dealing  with  boys  in 
numbers,  but  in  this  way  we  learn  little  more  about  their  minds 
than  a  drill  sergeant  learns  about  their  bodies. 

"Turning  again  to  Herbart  1  find  my  own  remarks  con- 
firmed by  him  :  Eniwurf  ziir  An/egung  eines  p'ddagogischen 
Sciniiiarii,  Pad.  Schriften,  note,  p.  16  :  '  Experience  must  be 
gained  by  long  and  close  observation  of  individuals  ;  otherwise 
it  is  impossible  to  get  beyond  the  surface  {ins  hinere  hlickcn). 
In  schools  where  the  teacher  can  pay  but  little  attention  to 
individuals,  all  appear  far  less  docile  {bildsnin)  than  they  really 
are,  for  only  that  small  cjuantum  of  docility  is  revealed  which 
responds  to  the  short  and  cursory  attention  that  the  teacher 
can  devote  to  the  individual.  In  order  to  observe  the  strong 
mutual  influence  of  the  scholars  one  on  another,  the  teacher 
must  be  a  practised  observer,  or  it  will  wholly  escape  his 
notice.  The  schoolmaster  generally  is  inclined  to  consider  his 
class  as  the  historian  does  a  nation,  i.e.  as  a  mass  of  human 
beings  concerning  which  he  has  to  form  in  his  mind  a  collec- 
tive impression.  This  collective  impression  blurs  or  destroys 
his  impression  of  each  individual.  .  .  .  Teachers  in  public 
institutions  gain  a  vast  number  of  observations  of  pupils  of  all 
sorts  and  kinds,  but  this  is  only  a  surface  knowledge  of  what 
shows  itself  in  school,  and  only  in  relation  to  discipline  and 
learning,  with  the  rare  exception  of  such  scholars  as  readily 
display  their  real  nature.  In  like  manner  the  historian  regards 
men  in  relation  to  events  ;  what  has  no  historical  consequence 
he  does  not  regard  and  deems  of  no  account  (p.  300).  He  goes 
on  to  find  fault  with  Fichte's  ideal  of  great  schools  in  which 
boys  form  their  own  community.  The  boys  make  observations 
enough  and  acquire  knowledge  of  the  world  {Afcnschenkentitnis), 
some  of  which  they  might  well  do  without  as  long  as  possible. 
They  acquire  a  corporate  feeling  among  themselves ;  some 
obey,  some  command.  Good  muscles  and  a  bold  front  secure 
the  lead.  The  cunning  get  others  to  carry  out  their  plans. 
All  are  bound  to  do  some  things  as  points  of  honour,  among 


Dcsu  Itoriucss  277 

them  secrecy  and  mutual  help  in  need.  So  far  I  agree  with 
Herbart,  but  when  he  goes  on  to  say  that  the  larger  such  a 
society  the  more  harshly  it  must  be  governed  and  the  more  the 
boys  will  desire  to  tyrannise  when  they  get  the  chance,  1  can 
go  with  him  no  longer.  1  think  all  the  worst  features  of  the 
conspiracy  (for  such  it  is)  of  boys  against  masters  are  found  in 
the  smaller  schools,  and  that  the  corporate  feeling  in  large 
schools  is  a  much  nobler  thing,  at  least  has  much  nobler 
elements  in  it.  At  Harrow  boys  govern  themselves,  and  as  a 
rule  they  do  so  with  very  good  effect.  They  do  not  come 
across  the  repression  of  masters  at  every  turn,  so  there  is  not 
much  thought  and  energy  thrown  into  a  systematic  effort  to 
cheat  them.  It  is  the  whole  system  that  restrains  them,  not 
the  arbitrary  power  of  the  masters.  If  the  boys  think  the 
master  or  even  the  body  of  masters  are  infringing  the  hereditary 
rights  and  customs  of  the  school,  there  is  strong  resistance  im- 
mediately. There  is  also  a  tendency  to  insurge  if  a  monitor  or 
sixth  form  boy  exceeds  his  powers,  but  I  think  the  boys  would 
take  display  of  arbitrary  power  more  calmly  from  boys  than 
from  masters." 

Desultoriness 

"  D.  Fearon,  in  his  School  Inspection,  is  very  emphatic  about 
preparing  lessons  and  keeping  a  log  book.  One  of  the  great 
weaknesses  of  my  work  is  that  it  is  not  properly  arranged 
beforehand.  Cowper  is  sarcastic  about  the  schoolmaster  who 
is  '  governed  by  the  clock,'  but  for  my  part  I  think  the  school- 
master should  be  so  governed,  and  my  work  would  be  much 
better  if  the  clock  were  more  attended  to  and  wound  up  more 
regularly.  The  great  danger  of  all  teachers  interested  in  their 
work  is  the  danger  of  being  desultory.  One  thinks  the  boys 
should  be  taught  so  and  so,  or  something  occurs  to  one  as 
useful  and  interesting,  and  one  goes  into  it  on  the  spot ;  but 
other  things  succeed  and  one  forgets  or  neglects  what  one 
began.     Things   require  to    be    thought  out   beforehand  and 


2  7.S  R.  II.  Quick 

then  kept  to  in  school,  and  the  sul)jects  of  the  lesson  carefully 
recorded." 

Correction  of  exercises 

"  A  clear  conception  of  aims  and  prearrangement  as  to  the 
means  of  securing  them,  important  everywhere,  are  especially 
important  in  the  schoolroom.  My  great  weakness  is  that 
things  are  not  arranged  beforehand,  and  I  am  generally  so 
clogged  with  exercises,  &c.,  unlooked  over  that  my  attention 
seems  always  engrossed  with  the  past  and  has  no  time  for  the 
future.  It  is  a  great  snare  to  set  boys  things  to  do  on  paper 
without  remembering  the  time  that  should  be  spent  on  the 
papers  when  written.  The  worst  plan  of  all  is  to  '  collect ' 
exercises  and  give  them  back  corrected  the  next  day  or  later. 
It's  no  use  striking  when  the  iron  has  cooled.  I'm  inclined  to 
think  the  boys  should  come  up  with  their  exercises,  the  master 
first  glance  at  each  and  mark  for  neatness  and  rough  impres- 
sion, then  work  the  thing  through  with  the  black-board." 


Classification  of  boys 

"  28.  5.  77.  On  Friday  the  second  meeting  of  the  London 
U.  U.'s'  took  place  at  Eve's.  The  subject  was  classification  of 
boys  :  a  very  hard  subject.  Eve  treated  the  three  possible 
solutions,  (i)  the  class  system,  (2)  the  free  system,  (3)  com- 
promise. The  Germans,  Wiese  tells  us,  have  since  1830  had  a 
rigid  class  system.  It  is  very  hard  to  understand  how  clever 
boys  and  dull  boys,  boys  who  like  classics  and  hate  mathe- 
matics, and  boys  with  exactly  the  opposite  tastes,  can  be  kept 
together  year  after  year  in  all  subjects.  The  Germans  are 
influenced  by  their  desire  for  the  equal  development  of  the 
whole  man.     The  free  system  is  in  vogue  at  University  College 

1  A  small  society  of  London  masters  who  met  periodically  to  discuss 
professional  questions. 


Classification  of  boys  279 

School,  and  Uie  men  seem  to  like  it.  But  it  has  great  draw- 
backs. There  is  no  one  to  be  responsible  for  the  individual 
boy.  Eve  has  tried  to  remedy  the  defect  by  a  kind  of  quasi- 
tutorial  system,  but  the  tie  must  be  a  weak  one.  The 
advantage  of  giving  a  master  a  special  subject  is  really  very 
doubtful.  ^Vith  older  pupils  a  man  may  be  led  to  study  the 
subject  carefully,  but  with  boys  the  master's  knowledge  and 
grasp  is  so  far  beyond  the  pupil's  that  the  master  is  not  stimu- 
lated at  all.  It  was  said  on  Friday  that  the  one-subject  master 
would  get  to  think  more  of  his  subject  than  of  the  learners, 
but  I  should  say  he  would  be  more  likely  to  settle  down  into 
a  routine  course  with  little  life  in  it.  This  seems  to  have  been 
the  case  with  mathematical  masters  in  our  public  schools.  It 
is,  I  think,  an  exceedingly  bad  thing  for  masters  to  be 
constantly  teaching  the  same  thing.  Some  people  hold  that 
he  should  have  advanced  pupils  as  well  as  beginners.  I  do 
not  think  this  would  pay  in  most  cases.  The  man  would 
either  get  to  despise  the  beginners  or  to  neglect  the  advanced 
pupils.  The  one  great  advantage  of  the  free  system  is  that  it 
gives  each  boy  so  many  more  chances  of  distinguishing  him- 
self. At  Clifton  the  classical  and  mathematical  forms  are 
kept  quite  distinct,  and  sixth  form  privileges  are  given  to  both 
sixths.  The  compromise  at  Harrow,  and  most  of  the  large 
public  schools,  is  to  cut  groups  of  forms  into  mathematical  sets 
and  let  mathematical  marks  count  to  some  extent  in  placing. 
All  placing  is  done  very  roughly  at  Harrow,  even  when  the 
marks  are  added  up  without  mistake,  which  probably  does  not 
very  often  happen.  I  don't  much  believe  myself  in  equating 
marks  ;  it  never  seems  fair  to  the  boys.  Clever  boys  who 
never  fail  in  anything  of  course  don't  suffer,  and  industrious 
boys  who  do  their  best  all  round  benefit  by  the  system  ;  but 
boys  who  might  do  very  well  in  particular  subjects  are  injured 
and  discouraged.  Walker  seems  to  have  gone  on  a  very  free 
system  at  Manchester.  He  had  boys  at  the  top  of  the  school 
doing  15  hours  a  week  of  mathematics  in  school,  and  others 


28o  R.  H.   Oiiick 

giving  the  same  time  to  natural  science.  He  was  always  noted 
for  the  amount  of  work  he  got  out  of  boys.  When  one  hears  the 
amount  of  work  Al)l)Ott  or  Walker  get  out  of  their  sixth  form 
boys  one  wonders  that  I'^ton  and  Harrow  are  anywhere  in  the 
race  for  honours.  Abbott  said  he  expected  his  boys  to  work 
at  the  least  three  hours  in  the  evening  for  him,  and  Walker 
said  sardonically,  '  We  get  more  than  three  hours  out  of  them 
at  Manchester.'  Abbott's  boys  have  great  liberty  of  study,  for 
they  are  treated  like  so  many  private  pupils,  and  as  they  are 
poor  boys  who  have  great  pressure  on  them  from  their  circum- 
stances they  work  without  pressure  from  the  masters." 

Learning  by  rote 

"  Weymouth  ^  has  lately  shocked  the  Education  Society  by 
maintaining  that  the  multiplication  table  must  be  driven  in. 
The  E.  S.  people  hold  that  it  should  be  made  an  intellectual 
exercise.  But  it  never  seems  to  occur  to  the  zealots  of  intel- 
lectual exercises  that  these  exercises  take  time.  If  we  had  to 
do  everything  by  an  intellectual  effort  we  should  hardly  have 
got  through  the  process  of  dressing  before  it  was  time  to 
undress  again.  In  the  same  way  if  we  treat  the  multiplication 
table  as  an  intellectual  exercise,  the  boys  would  never  know 
it  in  the  sense  of  being  able  instantly  to  give  the  multiple  of 
any  two  numbers,  and  the  art  of  arithmetic  would  never  be 
possible.  The  multiplication  must  be  learnt  so  as  to  be  used 
as  mere  consecutive  sounds." 


Science  and  Art  in  Education 

"  20.  6.  78.  In  the  lecture  I  have  spoken  of  above  I 
intended  to  work  out,  but  could  not  for  want  of  time,  the  need 
of  an  art  of  education  which  might  be  acquired  without  the 

1  Dr  R.  F.  Weymouth,  then  headmaster  of  the  Mill  Hill  School. 


Science  and  Art  281 

science.  Where  there  is  an  art  it  may  be  derived  from  the 
corresponding  science  or  practised  empirically.  If  it  is  good 
it  will  justify  itself  when  principles  are  appealed  to,  but  it  is 
always  exercised  without  thought  of  principles.  In  arithmetic, 
for  instance,  we  never  think  of  principles  in  working  a  sum. 
The  practice  may,  as  in  this  case,  arise  out  of  the  principles, 
but  when  once  formed  it  goes  of  itself,  so  to  speak,  and  there 
is  no  need  to  be  constantly  thinking  of  principles. 

"  Now  in  education,  or  rather  in  instruction,  we  have  an  art, 
but  it  is  a  bad  one  ;  it  has  been  arrived  at  empirically  and  will 
not  stand  testing  by  principles.  But  many  who  are  dissatisfied 
with  this  art  seem  to  think  that  it  may  be  swept  away,  and  that 
principles  or  theory  will  serve  them  better.  But  principles 
won't  do  by  themselves.  We  want  an  art,  an  art  correspond- 
ing with  the  principles  but  capable  of  working  without  con- 
stant reference  to  them.  When  Pestalozzi  was  examined  about 
his  system,  some  said,  '  Vous  voulez  mechaniser  I'education.' 
Now  this,  one  would  have  said,  was  the  very  opposite  of  the 
truth.  Pestalozzi  found  the  so-called  education  of  his  day  a 
mere  mechanical  routine,  and  he  sought  to  make  it  living,  not 
mechanical.  Yet  P.  accepted  this  description  of  his  efforts 
and  said, '  Yes,  that  is  just  what  I  do  want,  I  want  to  mechanise 
education,  for  we  must  remember  that  even  if  principles  would 
give  us  always  right  practice,  principles  will  not  be  properly 
apprehended  by  a  vast  number  of  people  who  must  teach. 
These  people  must  fall  back  on  the  practice  they  have  been 
taught.' 

"  It  often  happens  then  that  men  like  Mr  Payne  cannot 
introduce  much  change  even  into  their  old  schools.  There  is 
the  old  art  which  their  assistants  know.  The  new  art  has  first 
to  be  invented,  then  taught.  This  is  too  much  for  one  man  to 
attempt,  so  there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  accept  received 
methods.  And  even  when  one  has  some  insight  into  principles, 
one  cannot  see  in  all  cases  what  would  be  the  corresponding 
practice.     The  work  of  the  schoolroom  takes  a  good  deal  out 


282  R.  H.  Quick 

of  one.  At  the  time  one  stands  in  need  of  some  established 
habit,  of  some  '  art,'  to  get  one  through,  so  we  must  aim  at 
mechanising  education,  or  rather  instruction,  at  getting  a  good 
practice  which  will  run  of  itself." 

Books  for  Teachers 

"  7.  8.  79.  Little  or  nothing  has  been  done  in  the  way  of 
assisting  the  teacher  as  distinct  from  the  pupil.  Keys  to 
exercises,  to  be  sure,  are  issued  '  to  teachers  only '  according 
to  advertisements,  but  these  are  the  only  books  for  teachers  I 
know  of.  The  general  notion  is  that  teachers  should  do  every- 
thing for  themselves,  read  their  subjects  up  carefully,  make  up 
their  own  questions,  &c.,  &c.  As  a  fact,  teachers  will  not  take 
the  trouble,  and  books  written  expressly  for  them  would,  I 
fancy,  not  make  them  more  careless  than  they  are.  Such 
books  too  would  prevent  the  desultoriness  which  makes  most 
questioning  fruitless  for  teaching,  though  not  for  examining 
purposes.  By  teaching  I  here  mean  getting  right  conceptions 
in  the  mind  of  the  pupil  and  fixing  them  there.  Questions  are 
very  efficacious  in  doing  this.  First,  they  prepare  the  mind  for 
the  conception  by  making  the  need  felt.  In  some  cases  the 
mind  may  be  led  up  to  the  right  conception  by  a  judicious 
series  of  questions.  Then  when  the  conception  is  obtained  it 
may  be  used  in  various  connections  in  answer  to  fresh  questions. 
But  when  the  right  conception  exists  in  the  pupil's  mind,  the 
teacher's  work  is  not  more  than  half  done.  The  concept  must 
be  so  fixed  in  the  mind  that  it  may  be  readily  brought  into 
consciousness  when  wanted.  In  consideration  of  these  facts  I 
think  the  best  plan  would  be  for  the  teacher  to  go  over  his 
subject  beforehand  and  write  questions  to  it.  These  questions 
should  be  divisible  into  classes  according  to  settled  types. 
Of  course  additional  questions  should  be  asked  aus  dem 
Stegreif,  but  they  should  conform  to  the  types.  Desultory 
questioning  takes  more  time  than  it  is  worth.     But  as  teachers 


Girls    Schools  283 

will  not  thus  arrange  their  questions  or  even  their  types  of 
questions  beforehand,  I  think  books  of  questions  would  be 
of  use  to  them.  The  great  advantage  of  having  black  on 
white  is  that  back  questions  can  be  asked  each  lesson." 


Girls'  Schools 

"  The  teaching  of  girls  seems  carried  on  in  a  more  stupid 
way  than  even  that  of  boys.  Dates  form  a  branch  of  instruction. 
M.  R.  (just  ten)  has  learnt  her  dates,  and  says  she  remembers 
the  dates  but  can  never  remember  the  events  to  them.  When 
we  asked  1066?  she  said,  '  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne.' 
In  fact  schoolmistresses  try  to  get  into  cliildren's  memories 
mere  arbitrary  connections  of  sounds.  Then  there  is  the  learn- 
ing of  the  rules  of  French  grammar,  which  children  are  utterly 
unable  to  apply,  and  which  belong  to  a  stage  in  the  language 
which  they  will  not  reach  for  years. 

"  As  I  was  taking  Masie  through  Trinity  College,  and  she 
was  asking  what  I  did  at  College,  she  said,  '  I  thought  College 
was  like  school,  only  difficulter.'  " 


Fhiellen's  Leek 

"  Schoolmasters  of  the  old  school  used  to  make  a  great 
point  of  giving  boys  work  they  did  not  like.  They  said  it  was 
good  for  boys  to  be  made  to  apply  themselves  to  unpleasant 
tasks  :  then  they  learnt  masteries,  &c. :  it  was  an  utter  mistake 
on  the  part  of  the  master  to  try  to  make  things  pleasant. 
In  fact  they  commended  the  Latin  Grammar  to  their  pupils 
in  much  the  same  terms  as  Fluellen  commends  the  leek  to 
Pistol  —  'I  peseech  you  heartily,  scurvy,  lousy  knave,  at  my 
desires,  and  my  requests,  and  my  petitions,  to  eat,  look  you, 
this  leek  :  because,  look  you,  you  do  not  love  it,  nor  your 
affections,  and  your  appetites,  and  your  digestions,  does  not 


284  R.     //.     Q7cic/C 

agree  with  it,  I  woukl  desire  you  to  eat  it.'  This  was  practi- 
cally their  line,  and  they  then  betook  themselves  to  Fluellen's 
forcible  means  of  persuasion." 

Two  kinds  of  bad  Teachers 

"  Unsuccessful  teachers  may  be  divided  generally  into  those 
who  have  no  clear  conceptions  in  their  own  minds  and  those 
who,  having  clear  conceptions  in  their  own  minds,  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  same  clearness  must  exist  in  their  pupils' 
minds,  or  at  least  may  be  brought  about  easily  and  quickly. 
When  a  first-class  classic  or  a  high  wrangler  is  put  to  teach 
young  and  backward  boys,  he  seldom  gives  his  pupils  anything 
that  they  really  understand.  He  takes  all  elementary  con- 
ceptions for  granted.  On  the  other  hand,  people  of  the 
usher  and  governess  class  have  no  notion  what  clear  perception 
is,  so  they  naturally  do  not  cultivate  it  in  their  pupils.  As  it 
seems  to  me,  we  cannot  be  too  careful  to  see  whether  we  our- 
selves know  exactly  what  we  mean  by  the  words  we  use,  and 
whether  our  pupils  know  what  we  mean.  The  notion  of  the 
verb,  the  difference  between  a  transitive  and  intransitive  verb, 
and  between  active  and  passive  voice  does  not  get  clear  in 
most  children's  minds  for  years  after  they  are  supposed  to  be 
quite  familiar  with  it." 

How  to  create  interest 

"  2  July,  '82.  In  small  things  as  in  great,  success  and 
failure  often  depend  on  trifles.  To-day  (Sunday)  I  wanted  to 
show  three  small  boys  and  Masie  some  stereoscopic  slides, 
and  I  had  only  one  stereoscope.  I  chose  what  seemed  to  me 
the  most  interesting  and  passed  round  the  stereoscope.  The 
boys  showed  little  sign  of  interest  and  chattered  and  played 
when  they  passed  the  stereoscope.  There  were  a  good  many 
slides  —  far  too  many  for  all  to  be  seen,  so  I  started  the  plan  of 


Interest  285 

sending  round  a  dozen  or  so  at  a  time  and  letting  each  boy 
choose  a  photograph  for  the  next  to  be  looked  at,  those  not 
chosen  being  put  back  in  the  box.  The  plan  took  capitally  ;  the 
boys  were  engaged  in  choosing  when  not  looking  through  the 
stereoscope.  They  seemed  to  have  a  share  in  what  was  going 
on  and  so  were  interested  in  it,  in  the  derivative  sense  of  the 
word  and  in  every  sense.  \Ve  nright,  I  think,  learn  a  valuable 
lesson  from  the  derivation  of  interest.  If  the  boy  feels  lie 
counts  for  something  more  than  a  mere  recipient,  and  that  he 
has  a  share,  whether  by  his  choice  or  by  his  activity  in  what  is 
going  on,  forthwith  he  is  interested.  I  have  often  brought 
their  choice  in  by  letting  them  select  what  poetry  they  should 
learn  by  heart  from  a  number  of  pieces  I  have  read  to  them." 

Making  things  pleasant  in  school 

"4.  7.  82.  Most  scholastic  people  have  a  dread  of  making 
things  in  school  too  pleasant.  A  friend  of  mine  who  keeps  a 
day  school  has  had  parents  complain  that  the  boys  liked  their 
school  woik.  They  evidently  thought  that  anything  that  was 
pleasant  could  not  be  work.  So  think  not  I.  I  believe  that 
dull  work  is  necessarily  bad  work,  work  in  which  most  of  the 
powers  of  the  mind  are  dormant.  However  hard  the  work 
there  will  be  some  satisfaction  in  it  if  it  be  genuine  ;  and  this 
is  a  kind  of  pleasure.  But  the  satisfaction  felt  in  vigorous 
exertion  of  course  ceases  when  the  mind  begins  to  flag,  and  in 
school  there  must  be  a  great  deal  of  employment  which  is  not 
hard  work.  This  must  be  enlivened  by  all  manner  of  devices. 
To-day  I  have  been  trying  some  new  races  with  my  scratch 
pairs." 

Repetition  the  mother  of  studies 

"  19.  9.  82.  One  of  the  main  problems  in  teaching  is  how  to 
get  things  remembered  that  are  useful  but  not  interesting.    The 


286  R.  II.   Quick 

ordinary  instance  is  the  multiplication  table.  This  is  acquired 
by  repetition,  and  nobody  who  has  not  taught  knows  what  a 
tremendous  amount  of  repetition  is  re^iuired.  But  it  seems 
impossible  to  give  so  much  repetition  to  everything,  and  yet 
without  it  things  slide. 

"To-day  Mr  W.  gave  his  first  music  lesson  to  three  of  my 
boys.  We  have  taught  them  what  key  has  one  sharp,  two 
sharps,  and  the  like  information  over  and  over  again,  and  they 
have  not  seemed  inattentive  and  have  answered  rightly  when 
questioned,  but  to-day  after  a  few  weeks'  interval  everything 
seems  to  have  vanished  from  their  minds.  Here  is  a  difficulty. 
Everything  can  be  fixed  by  sufficient  repetition,  but  the  amount 
of  repetition  required  when  the  fixture  is  due  to  repetition 
only  is  so  enormous  that  life  is  not  long  enough  for  it.  Most 
teachers  try  to  get  more  remembered  than  can  be  repeated 
enough,  so  most  is  lost.  We  should  stick  to  essentials,  and 
these  we  must  fix  by  requiring  the  minds  of  our  pupils  to 
reproduce  them  incessantly  long  after  they  '  know  '  them.  The 
old  man  in  Marryat's  novel  who  kept  breaking  in  with  his 
'  How's  her  head?  '  was  a  good  teacher  of  the  mechanical  part 
of  learning.  But  the  amount  of  necessary  repetition  may  be 
reduced  if  there  is  any  keen  desire  to  learn.  Hence  the  appli- 
cation of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  old  plan  of  boxing 
a  boy's  ears  or  caning  him  every  time  he  failed  to  answer  a 
question  on  anything  he  had  learnt  by  heart  no  doubt  had 
some  effect  in  the  mechanical  part  of  learning,  but  it  deadened 
all  the  other  parts  of  the  mind.  One  great  danger  must  be 
borne  in  mind  as  to  mechanical  learning,  viz.  that  when  the 
master  thinks  the  thing  is  fixed,  the  only  thing  fixed  may  be 
empty  sounds." 

Teaching  in  a  small  area 

"  lo.  lo.  82.  Success  in  teaching  depends  in  a  great  meas- 
ure on  taking  a  very  small  area  and  carefully  keeping  out  of 


Follow-iny- leader  287 

sight  {i.e.  the  pupil's  sight)  everything  beyond  it.  Get  the 
learner's  mind  to  move  about  easily  and  accurately  in  that 
area,  and  he  will  be  prepared  for  subsequent  extensions.  But 
if  he  is  inaccurate  in  his  small  area,  he  will  never  take  a  safe 
step  in  a  larger. 

"  Some  teachers  try  to  drive  in  the  thick  end  of  the  wedge 
first  to  ensure  its  all  going  in." 

Class  Teaching,  a  game  of  FoUimi-my-leader 

"8.  II.  ?>T^.  Every  great  author  we  read  becomes  for  the 
time  the  leader  of  our  minds,  and  we  think  for  the  most  part 
just  what  he  pleases.  This  is  still  more  the  case  when  a 
true  teacher  stands  before  a  class.  He  plays  with  them  a 
game  of  '  follow-my-leader,'  only  it  is  a  game  of  great  skill  — 
skill  in  the  teacher  at  least.  He  has  to  see  that  all  follow, 
and  more  than  this,  he  gives  a  lead  and  then  has  to  get  the 
class  to  follow,  not  by  telling,  but  by  questioning.  Of  course 
this  involves  far  more  than  one  can  get  from  the  ordinary 
teacher.  It  involves  first  of  all  that  the  teacher  must  be 
clever  in  hitting  on  a  series  of  mental  motions  such  as  the 
class  can  take  after  him.  And  then  much  skill  is  needed 
in  framing  a  series  of  questions  which  will  lead  the  class  to 
the  desired  movement.  But  your  ordinary  teacher  is  not  a 
thinker,  and  so  makes  no  mental  movements  in  advance. 
What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  He  can't  stand  before  the  class 
and  get  nothing  from  them  ;  the  posture  would  be  ludicrous. 
He  therefore  falls  back  on  words  which  he  knows  by  heart 
or  can  get  from  a  book  without  thinking.  He  avails  himself 
of  the  tendency  in  children  and  adults  alike  to  run  along 
any    familiar   sequence.     So    his    form    of  question  is,  '  How 

doth  the  little  busy  bee  improve  each  shining ?'  and  the 

children  roar  in  chorus  '  Hour ! '  If  he  were  to  say,  *  When 
would  you  call  an  hour  a  shining  hour?  Is  this  a  shining 
hour?'  &c.  &c.,  he  would  not  get  a  single  answer.  There 
would  be  awkward  pauses." 


288  R.  H.  Quick 

Learning  should  be  focussed 

"  Most  subjects  become  intensely  interesting  when  you 
know  a  good  deal  about  them,  and  are  intensely  dull  when 
you  only  know  a  little.  This  is  specially  true  of  geography 
and  history.  An  old  illustration  of  mine,  suggested  by  fire- 
lighting  experiences  at  -Ingatestone,  is  a  good  illustration  of 
the  right  way  of  teaching  these  subjects.  Get  up  a  great 
heat  in  one  spot  and  trust  to  its  spreading  of  itself.  The 
same  amount  of  heat,  if  scattered,  would  simply  go  out.  In 
teaching  geography  we  might  get  boys  to  know  one  map,  say 
England,  well.  They  would  thus  have  learnt  what  a  delightful 
thing  a  map  is." 

A  Teacher's  failures 

"21  Jan.  '84.  I  have  this  evening  failed  in  the  night- 
school  in  giving  a  lesson  on  fractions  just  as  the  veriest  tiro 
might  fail. 

"  I  explained  too  much  and  did  not  make  the  lads  work 
out  things  for  themselves.  It  is  so  much  easier  to  explain, 
and  we  never  can  persuade  ourselves  that  what  we  under- 
stand we  can't  explain  to  others.  But  our  understanding  has 
come  to  us  little  by  little  over  a  long  period,  perhaps  years. 
We  can't  get  learners  to  reach  our  standpoint  in  a  few 
minutes  />er  saltum.  The  only  way  is  to  get  them  to  work 
out  each  step  for  themselves,  and  the  true  teacher  is  shown 
by  his  analysing  the  process  and  seeing  that  one  intellectual 
step  has  actually  been  taken  and  the  learner  at  home  on  that 
level  before  the  next  step  up  is  attempted." 

Practice  makes  imperfect 

" '  Men  continually  commit  their  most  blameworthy  acts 
in  the  mere  dulness  of  habit,  and  are  like  dogs  taught  to 
pilfer,    in   whom    we    pardon   to    the   imperfect    nature    what 


Auschauung  289 

would  be  unpardonable  in  a  rational  one.'     Ruskin's  Notes  on 
Pictures  in  Academy  Exhibition,  1856. 

"  Ruskin  is  speaking  of  bad  painters,  but  his  remark  is 
equally  true  of  teachers.  When  we  try  to  get  teachers  to 
think  about  their  occupation  we  are  often  told,  '  Oh,  we  don't 
want  your  theorists.  Practice  is  everything.'  Practice  is  not 
everything.  Practice,  when  it  means  doing  the  usual  thing, 
often  blinds  the  teacher  to  the  most  glaring  absurdities.  For 
three  centuries  teachers  insisted  on  all  boys  learning  the 
Propria  quae  maribus,  though,  as  someone  said  the  other 
day  at  Birmingham,  it  was  often  found  that  boys  who  could 
rattle  off  the  Propria  never  got  the  gender  of  a  Latin  sub- 
stantive right.  The  '  dulness  of  habit '  perpetuates  all  sorts 
of  silly  lessons,  and  turns  what  should  be  the  most  delightful 
of  occupations  into  one  of  the  dreariest  and  most  stupefying 
to  all  concerned  in  it." 

Ans  chaining 

"  27.  3.  84.  All  the  Germans,  and  now  at  last  the  French, 
have  learnt  of  the  thinkers  about  education  that  all  instruction, 
at  least  in  the  first  stages,  must  be  anschaulich,  intuitive,  must 
start  from  contact  with  the  thing  itself;  but  these  theoretical 
notions  have  not  crossed  the  Channel  yet.  But  no  great  im- 
provement can  be  made  in  the  English  schoolroom  till  they 
do.  Our  Training  Colleges  seem  to  bring  all  teachers  into 
bondage  to  the  weak  and  beggarly  elements,  the  three  R's  ;  and 
the  teachers,  having  learnt  little  about  things  themselves  and 
a  great  deal  about  signs,  teach  the  children  about  signs  only." 

J.  S.  Mill  on  Education 
{from   Caroline  Eox's  Memories  of  Old  Friends') 

"  Mill  does  not  like  things  to  be  made  too   easy  or  too 
agreeable  to  children ;   the  plums  should  not  be  picked  out 
u 


290  R.  H.  Quick 

for  them,  or  it  is  very   doubtful  if  they  will  ever  be  at  the 
trouble  of  learning  what  is  less  pleasant. 

"  In  my  opinion  you  might  as  well  say  that  children 
ought  to  be  compelled  to  swallow  nauseous  things  or  they 
will  never  take  physic  when  they  become  their  own  masters. 
It  is  nonsense  to  suppose  things  can  be  made  too  easy  for 
children.  Of  course  the  mental  act  necessary  for  real  learning 
may  be  shirked  altogether,  but  this  is  not  making  learning  too 
easy,  but  giving  up  learning.  If  there  is  no  pleasure  either 
from  the  thing  learnt  or  from  the  intellectual  exercise  of 
learning,  the  lesson  is  a  fiiilure." 


How  a  Teacher  should  live 

"There  is  a  capital  article  on  this  in  the  Journal  of  Edu- 
cation, Oct.  '85.  'It  is  not  enough  to  light  your  lamp,  you 
must  supply  it  with  oil.' 

"  True,  but  generally  speaking  the  teacher  has  lost  interest 
in  the  subject,  an  und  fiir  sich.  '  Nom. />,  ea,  id.  Ace.  eum, 
earn,  id.'  I  have  known  this  so  long  that  it  affects  my  mind 
no  otherwise  than  '  fee-fi-fo-fum.'  Very  often  teachers  get  to 
hate  the  crambe  repctita,  and  teaching  others  what  bores  one- 
self must  be  dismal  work  indeed.  But  with  Latin  I  have 
such  an  interest  in  the  progress  of  the  boys  that  I  never  tire 
of  teaching  them  what  I  know  is  essential.  I'm  inclined  to 
think  the  writer  makes  too  much  of  fresh  ideas  for  enabling 
a  teacher  to  teach.  If  he  is  interested  in  his  work  and  does 
not  try  to  teach  too  much,  he  will  probably  succeed.  Intel- 
lectual freshness  can't  be  kept  up  in  teaching  boys  five  hours 
a  day.  But  it  may  last  out  part  of  the  five  hours  —  say  two 
hours.  The  reason  I  should  insist  on  short  hours  of  toil 
and  pleasant  recreation  is  that  not  only  good  temper,  but 
good  spirits  are  essential  in  a  teacher  who  is  to  manage  a 
form  properly." 


A  cricketer  on  teaching  291 


Importance  of  the  Why  in  learning 

"  Instructors  generally  seem  to  think  that,  so  long  as  the 
mind  takes  a  right  conception,  it  is  not  of  the  smallest  con- 
sequence why  the  mind  takes  it  in.  For  instance,  the  school- 
master of  our  youth  set  us  to  learn  tristis.  W'e  had  to  go  on 
saying  '  hie  haec  tristis,  hoc  triste  '  till  we  '  knew '  it.  To  know 
a  thing  in  school  language  meant  to  be  able  to  rattle  it  off 
without  thinking.  If  the  method  was  imperfect  and  we  said 
'  Ablative  triste,'  the  method  in  vogue  was  to  jog  our  memories 
by  help  of  the  cane.  No  doubt  the  method  gained  its  end, 
and  fear  of  the  cane  helped  us  to  remember  that  the  ablative 
was  tristi.  But  the  schoolboy  did  not  learn  to  decline  tristis 
in  order  to  know  the  declension  of  Latin  adjectives  in  -is,  so 
when  he  was  asked  what  is  the  ablative  of  siinilis  he  had  no 
notion,  and  it  was  only  after  much  loss  of  time  and  renewed 
application  that  the  connection  between  tristis  and  other  words 
was  arrived  at.  So  after  all,  it  makes  a  difference  ivhy  the 
mind  admits  a  conception." 


Spofforth  on  Practice 

"  9  June  '86.  I  have  often  tried  to  i)oint  out  that  practice 
does  not  make  perfect  unless  it  is  careful  and  well-directed 
practice.  Spofforth,  the  Australian  bowler,  gives  his  views  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  of  yesterday,  and  tells  us  he  does  not 
practise  much  except  in  actual  play  for  fear  of  practising  care- 
lessly. '  I  have  always  found  I  retjuire  the  stimulus  and  ex- 
citement of  a  match  to  put  me  on  my  mettle.  If  I  practise 
at  a  net  in  the  usual  way  one  is  apt  to  become  careless.  .  .  . 
So  I  hold  —  please  remember  this  is  only  my  own  opinion  — 
that  practice,  unless  very  thorough,  very  much  in  earnest, 
is  not  good,  as  it  tends  to  become  careless  and  slovenly, 
and  teaches  bad  habits  which  are  with  difficulty  eradicated.' 


292  R.  H.  Quick 

Spofforth  seems  a  thinking  kind  of  person.  '  Bowl  with 
brains '  is  his  recipe.  He  thinks  of  the  effect  of  each  ball, 
changes  his  pace  and  manner,  &c.  When  asked  about  a 
great  bowler  being  born,  not  made,  he  said  this  was  all 
stuff.  He  was  ambitious  and  thought  he  would  make  him- 
self a  good  bowler,  and  studied  the  thing  as  a  problem. 
He  thought  out  this  and  that  move,  then  came  and  got 
criticised  by  the  best  English  professional  there  was  out  in 
Austraha.  'Thus  I  was  constantly  trying,  first  as  a  mental 
problem,  then  as  a  practical  result.'  He  says,  moreover,  that 
for  a  long  time  he  imitated  ^xvX  one  man,  then  another. 
^''  De  te  fab  Ilia,  magister .'" 

A  dog-fancier  on   Training 

"  25.  8.  86.  Yesterday  I  was  talking  with  a  very  skilful 
dog- trainer.  He  often  buys  a  dog  for  -Qi,  and  after  a  fort- 
night's training  sells  it  for  ^15.  I  asked  him  how  he  did  it. 
'  Well,  Sir,'  he  said,  '  it  takes  a  deal  of  patience.  You  must 
never  get  vexed  with  a  dog.  I've  known  a  lot  of  dogs  spoilt 
through  the  man  losing  patience  with  them  and  giving  them 
the  whip  at  the  wrong  time.'  " 

Natural  Science  Teaching 

"W.  Tuckwell  has  a  paper  in  Nature  (4  Nov.  '69)  on 
teaching  natural  science  in  schools.  He  says  the  true  maxim 
is  that  of  Socrates,  that  no  true  instruction  can  be  bestowed 
on  learners,  Trapa  tov  ixrj  dpea-Kovros,  by  a  teacher  who  does 
not  give  them  pleasure.  Boys  make  nothing  their  own  so 
thoroughly  as  that  which  they  select  for  themselves. 

"  One  point  has  struck  me  very  forcibly  in  my  own  expe- 
rience, viz.  the  unexpected  value  of  general  culture  in  teaching 
special  subjects.  The  man  who  knows  science  admirably,  but 
knows   nothing  else,   prepares  boys  well   for  an  examination, 


Jesuit  Education  293 

but  his  teaching  does  not  stick.  The  man  of  wide  cuhure 
and  refinement  brings  fewer  pupils  up  to  a  given  mark  within 
a  given  time,  but  what  he  has  taught  remains  with  them  ;  they 
never  forget  or  fall  back.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  understand 
the  phenomenon,  but  I  have  noted  it  repeatedly." 

Jesuit  Education 

"  16.  8.  88.  The  Jesuit  notion  of  education  was  like  the 
drill-sergeant.  The  drill-sergeant  cares  nothing  for  the  in- 
dividual as  such ;  his  care  is  for  the  regiment.  Eut  the 
regiment  is  composed  of  individuals.  Any  weakness  in  an 
individual  is  a  weakness  to  the  regiment,  and  any  excellence 
in  an  individual  in  certain  lines  benefits  the  regiment.  What 
the  sergeant  aims  at  is  turning  out  men  of  a  peculiar  type 
who  have  learnt  to  work  together,  and  by  their  united  action 
get  a  kind  of  strength  that  no  number  of  individuals  would 
have  as  atoms.  So  the  kind  of  education  is  fixed  and  limited 
by  the  end.  The  notion  of  the  Jesuits  was  this  of  gaining 
force  by  welding  individuals  into  a  body.  The  body  was 
everything ;  the  individual,  except  with  reference  to  the  body, 
was  nothing.  Most  other  systems  of  education  regard  the 
individual.  If  the  subject  of  education  is,  as  Locke  says, 
wax  in  the  hands  of  the  educator,  the  ideal  to  which  he  is 
to  be  wrought  must  be  settled  by  the  educator.  According 
to  Addison,  the  educator  works  as  it  were  on  a  block  of 
marble  and  sets  free  the  idea  that  is  potentially  contained 
in  it.  The  question  arises,  Where  is  this  idea?  There  is 
nothing  to  fix  it  but  the  mind  of  the  sculptor,  and,  as  some 
one  has  said,  he  is  a  destroyer  no  less  than  a  creator,  for 
in  bringing  one  idea  out  of  the  marble  he  destroys  a  thou- 
sand other  ideas  that  were  also  contained  in  it.  These  wax 
and  marble  notions  have  now  given  way  to  a  very  different 
order  of  idea.  The  child  is  neither  wax  nor  marble,  and 
he  does   not  take   his   form   and   shape    from   the   educator. 


294  ^'  ^-   Q^iick 

He  is  a  plant,  the  idea  of  which  exists  quite  independently 
of  the  educator.  All  that  can  be  done  is  to  secure  for  the 
plant  the  conditions  favourable  to  growth  and  to  guard  it 
from  injury.  This  metaphor  seems  to  us  a  far  better  one 
than  the  others,  but  still  quite  inadequate.  It  fails  in  two 
ways.  First  the  plant  may  reach  its  perfection,  but  the  man 
cannot  reach  his.  It  has  become  a  kind  of  common-place 
with  educational  people  to  say  education  should  secure  the 
symmetrical  development  of  all  the  powers  of  mind  and 
body.  But  such  an  ideal  is  wholly  unrealisable.  None  of 
our  powers  can  be  developed  in  perfection,  some  cannot  be 
developed  at  all.  If  we  wanted  to  develop  a  boy's  powers 
of  sight  and  hearing,  we  ought  to  give  him  a  training  hke 
that  of  the  savage.  I  have  known  a  boy  from  Ashanti  over- 
hear a  conversation  that  would  have  been  inarticulate,  if  not 
inaudible,  to  any  European  ears.  But  this  boy's  thinking 
powers  were  much  below  those  of  an  English  bumpkin. 
Some  of  our  powers  we  neglect  entirely.  Japanese  jugglers 
show  what  w-e  might  do  with  our  toes,  but  I  never  heard 
the  most  advanced  educationist  recommend  toe  exercises. 
Mr  Ruskin  has  somewhere  recommended  the  cultivation  of 
the  palate,  but  it  is  one  of  the  queer  suggestions  that  have 
made  some  people  doubt  his  sanity.  And  if  we  must  to 
some  extent  neglect  our  bodily  powers,  still  more  must  we 
despair  of  thoroughly  cultivating  all  the  powers  of  our  mind. 
So  the  notion  of  complete  harmonious  development  has  as 
much  reality  in  it  as  proposals  for  a  calculus  of  the  fourth 
dimension.  Secondly,  the  vegetable  kingdom  gives  us  no 
analogy  for  the  most  striking  fact  of  social  life,  the  inter- 
action of  human  beings  on  one  another.  We  do,  indeed, 
think  of  aggregates  and  overlook  individuals  when  we  speak 
of  a  forest,  a  corn-field,  or  a  meadow^  The  individual  ear  of 
corn  or  blade  of  grass  would  not  indeed  be  likely  to  thrive 
alone,  but  it  springs  up  independently  of  its  fellows,  takes 
nothing   from   them   and   gives    them    nothing,    except   to   a 


Elcctrobiology  295 

limited  extent  the  support  of  contiguity.  But  we  are  what 
we  are  through  the  action  of  others  on  us  and  our  action 
on  them.  Casper  Hauser  shows  us  what  a  human  being 
may  grow  up  if  cut  off  from  his  fellows.  Rousseau's  prin- 
ciples, if  logically  carried  out,  would,  as  it  seems  to  me,  pro- 
duce Casper  Hausers.  All  evil,  he  says,  comes  to  us  from 
the  action  of  our  fellow-creatures.  Therefore  Emile  is  to  be 
cut  off  from  everyone  but  his  tutor.  But  the  exception  is 
inconsequent.  Perhaps  Rousseau  might  have  said,  '  It  is  the 
mischief  from  bad  or  foolish  companions  that  I  dread.  I 
can  hope  to  get  a  single  wise  man,  but  not  more  than  one.' 
But  Rousseau  rails  at  everything  that  has  come  of  the  action 
of  human  beings  on  each  other ;  he  does  not  confine  himself 
to  corruptions.  We  must  get  free  from  human  influences. 
The  only  influence  he  allows  in  the  bringing  up  is  his  own. 
•But  the  thing  is  purely  chimerical.  The  child  will  be  affected 
by  what  he  says  and  does  to  others,  and  by  what  they  say  and 
do  to  him.  And  everything  in  education  must  take  into  account 
this  interaction." 

The  Master's  electrobiology 

"  The  phenomena  of  electrobiology  are  constantly  observ- 
able on  a  small  scale  in  form  teaching.  The  will  of  the  master 
has  an  electrical  effect  on  the  boys.  When  I  was  overworked 
here  I  never  could  prevent  talking  in  school.  Setting  lines 
proved  no  cure  whatever.  I  now  never  think  of  setting  lines, 
and  I  have  no  trouble  whatever  with  talking.  The  thing  seems 
to  me  impossible,  and  consequently  it  seems  impossible  to  the 
boys.  I  rarely  observe  a  whisper,  and  when  I  do,  a  glance  stops 
it.  I  now  have  a  form  twice  a  week  who  belong  to  the  classical 
side,  and  come  to  me  these  two  hours  only.  They  are  a  good 
set  of  boys,  and  I  have  not  the  smallest  trouble  with  them. 
To-day  I  was  unwell,  and  one  boy  who  came  without  his  book 
did  talk  to  his  neighbour  several  times.     I  tried  a  plan  which 


296  R.  H.  Quick 

seems  to  me  better  than  speaking  at  the  time  when  one  sees 
anything  amiss.  I  took  not  the  shghtest  notice  of  this  whisper- 
ing till  the  lesson  was  over.  I  then  told  the  form  that  I  was 
very  much  pleased  by  their  general  behaviour,  but  I  was  sorry 
to  say  there  had  been  one  exception.  One  boy  had  been 
behaving  badly.  C.  had  come  to  school  without  a  book,  which 
was  an  accident ;  but  having  done  this,  he  had  made  himself  a 
perfect  nuisance  by  whispering  to  his  neighbour.  An  harangue 
of  this  kind  is  more  efficacious  than  lines.  Sometimes  I  don't 
mention  the  boy  I  am  referring  to,  but  to-day  the  case  was  a 
bad  one,  and,  like  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
I  named  him.  At  another  school  I  saw  a  boy  put  a  lozenge 
in  his  mouth.  I  asked  him  soon  after  what  he  had  in  his 
mouth.  He  was  in  the  Fifth  and  didn't  like  having  to  an- 
nounce what  it  was.  I  told  him  it  seemed  to  me  very  silly, 
childish  conduct  for  a  Fifth  Form  boy  to  be  sucking  lollipops- 
in  school.  As  the  boy  was  not  a  leader  who  could  carry  off 
such  a  public  rebuke  with  a  high  hand,  I  fancy  he  would  sooner 
have  had  lines.  One  must,  of  course,  vary  one's  reproof  ac- 
cording to  the  boy.  The  plan  of  not  speaking  at  the  time  one 
sees  small  matters  of  this  kind  and  of  referring  to  them  after- 
wards is  very  effective.  Directly  a  boy  feels  that  he  does  not 
know  what  you  have  observed  and  what  you  have  not,  he 
begins  to  fancy  that  you  observe  everything." 


Child  N^ature  297 

CHILD   NATURE 

GeJitleness  in  a  Teacher 

"  Every  decade  weakens  the  force  of  our  impressions  till 
'  we  feel  but  half,  and  feebly  what  we  feel,'  and,  as  Jean  Paul 
says,  it  takes  heaven  itself  to  impress  us.  And,  as  we  meas- 
ure others  by  ourselves,  we  do  not  think  how  vivid  are  the 
impressions  we  are  making  on  the  children  around  us. 

"  A  little  while  ago  a  child  was  sent  to  get  something  out 
of  a  locker  so  situated  that  the  operation  disturbed  the  class 
I  was  teaching.  While  the  locker  was  resting  on  his  head,  I 
patted  him  with  it  gently  and  said  impatiently,  '  Make  haste, 
make  haste  ! '  The  poor  child  burst  into  an  agony  of  tears, 
and  it  all  at  once  dawned  on  me  that  I  was  an  ogre  into 
whose  den  the  child  had  come  with  the  keenest  apprehensions 
of  the  consequences." 

Unkindness  to  children 

"  It  makes  one's  heart  ache  when  one  thinks  of  children 
being  unkindly  treated.  The  least  semblance  of  unkindness 
affects  our  children  and  makes  them  miserable.  The  other 
day  Dora  had  put  on  Oliver's  pinafore  and  was  playing  at 
being  Oliver.  Just  as  his  mother  was  joining  in  the  game, 
she  said,  '  Get  along  with  you,  little  Oliver  !  '  Oliver  himself 
happened  to  come  to  the  door,  and,  supposing  that  his  mother 
was  addressing  the  real  Oliver,  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and 
it  was  a  long  time  before  he  could  be  comforted. 

"Contrast  this  with  what  I  saw  yesterday  (27  March,  '87). 
A  fiendish  woman  came  out  of  a  public-house  and  bent  down 
with  horrid  abuse  over  what  I  at  first  supposed  to  be  a  dog, 
but  what  proved  to  be  her  own  child  (about  Oliver's  age) 
whom  she  had  left  outside.     My  heart  ached   for  the  poor 


298  R.  H.  Quick 

child,  but  when  the  mother  plunged  again  into  the  public,  I 
observed  that  the  child  had  not  been  much  affected  by  this 
outburst  of  brutality,  but  looked  stolidly  contented.  I  sup- 
pose the  cuticle  of  the  mind,  like  that  of  the  body,  soon 
ceases  to  be  sensitive  if  exposed  to  harsh  treatment." 

Children  in  the  Old  Testament 

"  There  is  very  little,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  about 
children  in  the  Old  Testament,  but  in  Zechariah  viii.  5,  in 
a  prophecy  of  the  prosperity  of  Jerusalem,  he  mentions  not 
only  the  old,  but  goes  on,  '  And  the  streets  of  the  city  shall 
be  full  of  boys  and  girls  playing  in  the  streets  thereof  There 
is  no  prettier  sight  to  my  eye  than  streets  full  of  children,  a 
sight  I  have  often  enjoyed  on  fine  summer  mornings  in  old 
German  and  Swiss  towns  between  6.30  and  the  school-hour  7. 
I  remember  that  Halle  used  at  this  time  in  the  morning  to 
seem  a  city  of  children." 

A  precocious  boy 

"Nov.  4,  '77.  On  Friday  evening  I  went  down  to  Cater- 
ham  and  heard  a  debate  of  the  '  Historical  Society  '  at  Lake's 
preparatory  school.  The  subject  was  '  Should  England  have 
avoided  the  wars  with  France  subsequent  to  1688?'  Lake 
confined  himself  to  the  Lewis  XIV.  wars,  which  were  ac- 
cording to  him  a  mistake  and  came  of  Dutch  Bill,  who  was 
not  a  national  king.  Lake's  speech  was  much  too  long.  His 
assistant's,  who  followed  on  the  other  side,  was  in  manner 
detestably  bad,  and  he  punished  his  hearers  considerably, 
though  he  talked  some  sense.  A  dissenting  minister  spoke 
with  a  much  better  manner  than  any  of  us,  but  without  a 
grain  of  sense.  Then  came  the  event  of  the  evening.  I  had 
observed  a  small  boy  with  bright  eyes  who  had  been  fussing 
about  and  taking  notes.     This  child,  who  looked  about  nine, 


CJiild  Nature  299 

though  I  believe  he  is  over  ten,  then  got  up  and  made  a 
most  effective  reply  to  Lake.  Some  of  his  arguments  were 
excellent :  e.g.  Lake  had  said  that  Lewis  XIV. 's  power  would 
not  have  lasted  long.  Mactaggart  replied  that  a  simoom  does 
not  last  long,  but  this  would  be  a  poor  reason  for  not  averting 
it  if  possible.  Altogether  the  child  showed  a  most  remarkable 
critical  power.  About  the  most  precocious  thing  I  heard  from 
him  was  his  answer  to  the  question  '  Which  side  do  you  take 
in  the  Eastern  war  ? '  a  question  I  put  to  him  on  the  way  to 
town  next  morning  (he  was  coming  up  for  an  exeat).  He  said, 
'  Really  it  is  such  a  very  large  question  that  I  cannot  form  an 
opinion  about  it.'  " 


On  a  schoolboy s  diary  {confiscated  at  Cranleigh)  ^ 

"  I  wish  we  could  understand  and  sympathise  with  boys' 
feelings  and  hopes  and  fears.  It  is  so  difficult  to  get  at  them. 
We  should  not  like  to  live  with  grown  people  who  habitually 
concealed  from  us  all  that  they  thought  and  felt,  and  yet  we 
have  to  live  on  these  terms  with  boys,  and  because  we  are 
conscious  of  knowing  and  being  able  to  do  so  much  more 
than  they,  we  hardly  give  them  credit  for  knowing  or  feeling 
anything." 

Intensity  of  Child  Life 

"  One  thing  grown-up  people  fail  to  realise  about  boy  life, 
especially  children's  life,  and  that  is  the  intensity  of  it.  We 
ourselves  get  so  phlegmatic.  With  us  nothing  very  much 
matters.  But  with  the  young  everything  matters,  and  that 
intensely.  So  there  is  a  strong  life  of  hopes,  fears,  likes  and 
dislikes,  friendships  and  quarrels  going  on,  which  the  master 
little  suspects." 

^  The  diary  is  transcribed  in  full,  but  is  hardly  worth  quoting. 


300  R.  H.  Qici'ck 


The   Chilli's  Mind 

"  The  child-mind  is  a  dehghtful  thing  in  the  ideal,  but 
practically  it  is  a  nuisance.  It  goes  on  wondering  who  is  the 
biggest  man  in  the  world,  &c.  &c.  It  never  seems  to  have 
any  grist  to  grind,  and  goes  on  turning  and  turning  as  if  in 
a  hurricane,  and  no  sense  results." 


Boys  in  combination 

"  Assemblies  of  boys  are  like  elements  in  chemical  combi- 
nation. The  mixture  has  properties  which  are  totally  absent 
from  the  component  parts  when  asunder.  A  and  B  may  be 
quiet,  gentlemanlike  boys  when  apart,  and  yet  together  they 
may  be  a  pair  of  unruly,  unmannerly  litde  cads." 


Child  Nature 

"  22.  3.  87.  The  life  of  children,  how  little  we  under- 
stand it  !  Except  the  cord  of  love,  there  seems  little  to  unite 
us  with  them.  Our  aims  are  so  different,  our  estimates  so 
different,  our  interests  so  different  !  One  of  the  child's  main 
objects  in  life  seems  to  be  imposing  its  own  will  on  those  about 
it,  and  this  will  which  the  child  is  always  contending  for  is 
the  merest  caprice,  and  formed  no  grown-up  person  can  say 
why.  Without  experience  one  could  hardly  believe  what  a 
constant  warfare  the  child  wages  in  getting  its  own  way.  That 
the  way  of  the  grown-up  person  may  conceivably  be  better 
never  comes  into  the  child's  head.  The  child  feels  the  grown 
person  to  be  stronger,  and  it  learns  to  submit  without  the 
least  show  of  resistance,  just  as  we  submit  to  the  weather. 
But  the  judicious,  loving  elder  does  not  like  to  be  always 
opposing,  and  is  afraid  of  crushing  the  child's  free  action, 
so  we  naturally  let  the  child  have  its  way  wherever  we  can. 


Child  Nature  301 

Then  we  come  to  a  point  where  the  child's  will  would  cause 
great  inconvenience,  perhaps  risks  that  cannot  be  faced. 
Then  comes  the  tug.  If  the  child  is  not  coaxed  to  attend 
to  something  else,  it  sets  up  a  howl  and  makes  itself  almost 
intolerable. 

"  Our  children  have  never  gained  anything  in  this  way, 
and  they  mostly  understand  when  they  have  pushed  their 
own  will  as  far  as  they  will  be  allowed,  but  at  times  they 
turn  'naughty,'  and  the  childish  'I  shan't!'  has  to  be  met 
hy  force  majeure y 

A  school  anecdote 

"12  June,  '87.  B.  Tower  told  me  the  following.  He 
hates  boys  eating  in  school,  and  has  a  regular  punishment 
for  that  offence.  For  a  long  time  he  had  had  no  case  of  it, 
when  one  day  a  boy  just  in  front  of  him  worked  his  jaws 
in  a  way  that  seemed  unmistakable.  '  You  are  eating,'  said 
Tower.  The  boy  did  not  deny  it.  '  Bring  me  what  you 
are  eating.'  The  boy  produced  from  his  pocket  an  old- 
looking  slab  of  cocoa-nut  ice.  Tower  was  angry  and  pitched 
in  pretty  hot,  at  the  same  time  setting  the  regulation  punish- 
ment. After  school  the  boy  came  to  him  privately  and  said, 
'  I  wasn't  eating,  Sir.'  '  I  saw  you,'  said  Tower.  '  No,  Sir,  I 
was  getting  my  teeth  right.  I  have  false  teeth.'  And  Tower 
found  that  the  boy  had  confessed  to  eating  and  taken  his 
punishment  rather  than  confess  to  the  form  that  he  had 
false  teeth." 

Children  and  Mothers 

"  10.  I.  89.  A  healthy  child  has  boundless  activities  both 
of  brain  and  Hmb.  To  the  adult  these  activities  seem  energy 
wasted,  to  be  let  alone  or  positively  repressed  as  resulting  in 
mischief.  The  mother  alone  seems  provided  with  an  instinct 
which  enables  her  to  understand  and  direct   the  energies  of 


302  R.  H.  Quick 

her  offspring.  The  sober  old  cat  is  not  irritated  by  the  rest- 
lessness of  her  kittens,  and  even  condescends  to  romp  with 
them  at  the  expense  of  her  own  dignity ;  but  when  the 
kitten  upsets  the  milk-jug  the  cook  goes  for  her  with  the 
broom.  It  is  disastrous  that  in  '  society '  the  mother  has 
little  to  do  with  the  children.  How  can  the  wretched  nurse- 
maid, whom  I  pity  from  the  ground  of  my  heart,  supply  her 
place?  In  school  children  are  kept  quiet,  and  this  is  probably 
the  very  worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  them." 


Dora  303 

DORA  AND   OLIVER 

A  Study  of  Child  Life 

The  following  chapter  includes,  with  a  few  unimportant 
omissions  and  condensations,  the  life  history  of  two  children 
from  their  birth  to  their  seventh  and  fourth  years  respectively, 
as  set  down  day  by  day  in  the  Note  Books.  It  hardly  needs 
preface  or  comment.  It  makes,  indeed,  no  pretence  to  scien- 
tific accuracy,  and  cannot  on  this  score  take  rank  with  the 
child-studies  of  Parez  or  Preyer.  Quick  had  no  knowledge 
of  physiology  or  of  psychology  in  its  modern  developments. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  an  almost  unique  interest  as  the 
study  of  a  close  observer  and  original  teacher  on  his  own 
children,  to  whom  he  was  able  to  devote  a  large  portion 
of  his  time,  and  on  whom  he  tested  his  own  educational 
theories.  We  cannot  but  regret  that  his  observations  on 
Oliver  are  not  set  down  with  the  same  minuteness  and  regu- 
larity as  those  on  Dora,  so  that  in  the  record  (what  was  any- 
thing but  the  case  in  real  life)  the  boy  seems  but  a  foil  to 
the  girl. 

"  7  Feb.  ^2>2).  Before  making  another  entry  in  this  book, 
I  wish  to  record  my  feeling  of  gratitude  to  our  Heavenly 
Father  that  He  has  suffered  me  to  have  my  own  child  in 
my  arms.  My  little  daughter  is  in  the  sixth  day  of  her  sepa- 
rate existence  —  individual  existence  I  should  say.  May  God 
preserve  her." 

"  30  April,  'ZT).  Theodora  is  now  \2\  weeks  old.  Already 
she  begins  to  take  notice,  and  has  done  so  for  three  weeks 
at  least.  At  first  the  child  can  do  nothing  but  cry,  and 
seems  to  have  to  learn  even  how  to  get  its  mother's  milk. 
It  gives  no  sign  that  it  uses  its  eyes.  Dora  first  seemed  to 
hear,  for  she  very  soon  started  at  any  sudden  noise.  At 
about  one  month  she  began  to  start  at  the  light.     She  now 


304  R-  H.  Quick 

makes  pretty,  cooing  sounds  when  she  is  happy,  and  she 
laughs  [  ?] .  Some  sort  of  connection  of  ideas  is  already  estab- 
lished in  her  mind,  for  she  leaves  off  crying  when  she  turns 
to  her  mother's  breast,  and  does  not  wait  to  touch  it.  She 
has  a  great  aversion  to  dressing  or  undressing,  though  she 
likes  her  bath.  She  knows  what  is  going  to  happen,  and 
directly  a  string  is  untied  she  begins  to  scream.  What  sur- 
prises me  is  the  time  she  will  give  her  attention  to  any  object 
that  pleases  her.  I  have  held  up  a  handkerchief  or  a  bracelet 
and  danced  it  about  where  she  could  see  it,  and  she  has  fixed 
her  eyes  on  the  object  and  kept  them  fixed  for  five  or  ten 
minutes.  That  she  looks  at  the  thing  and  is  occupied  with  it 
is  certain,  for  when  I  move  it  she  follows  it  with  her  eyes. 
She  now  understands  following  with  the  eyes,  but  not  moving 
the  head  to  increase  her  field  of  vision." 

"  I  May,  "^T^.  At  three  months  she  stared  and  laughed  at 
a  bracelet  for  over  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  in  fact  till  I  was  too 
tired  to  hold  it  up  any  longer.  She  is  now  getting  to  turn  her 
head  so  as  to  keep  the  object  in  sight." 

"  19  May,  '83.  At  3^  months  I  am  struck  with  the  vast 
amount  of  exercise  she  takes.  She  will  keep  hard  at  work  for 
nearly  or  quite  an  hour  throwing  about  her  arms  and  kicking 
out  first  one  leg,  then  the  other,  at  the  same  time  that  her 
arms  are  at  work." 

"  23  July,  '83.  Dora  is  within  a  week  of  six  months.  She 
has  learnt  to  play,  and  at  times  in  playing  she  laughs  heartily. 
I  observe  that  now  and  then  she  discovers  she  can  do  some- 
thing new,  and  the  discovery  seems  to  please  her  and  she 
practises  it  a  good  deal,  e.g.  she  learnt  a  process  of  pro- 
longed spitting  with  a  bubbling  noise,  but  when  she  had 
practised  it  for  a  few  days  she  seemed  to  forget  it  again. 
The  same  with  a  prolonged  e  . .  .  r  in  her  throat.  It  is  odd 
to  find  accomplishments  gained  and  lost  again  at  so  early 
an  age. 

"  It  is  strange,  too,  that  at  so  early  an  age  she  seems  to 


Dora  305 

have  fits  of  violent  passion.  When  her  mother  tries  to  put 
her  to  sleep  at  night  she  sometimes  begins  to  thrust  her  fists 
into  her  eyes,  then  throw  herself  about  violently,  and  then 
take  to  screaming,  and  this  she  carries  on  for  an  hour  or  so 
till  tired  out." 

"  24  Nov.  '83.  I  wish  I  had  taken  more  notes  about 
Dora.  It  would  be  interesting  to  observe  how  soon  a  child 
shows  righthandedness.  Dora  is  now  just  ten  months  old 
and  her  righthandedness  is  as  complete  as  ours.  She  lets  a 
ball  id\\  to  see  it  roll  along  the  floor,  and  if  it  is  put  in  her 
left  hand  she  always  transfers  it  to  the  right  before  she  lets 
it  fall  again. 

"The  chief  facts  I  have  observed  are  her  interest  in 
healing;  she  does  anything  she  can  to  get  sound;  next  her 
constant  examination  of  everything  by  touch,  and  the  con- 
stant occupation  of  her  hands.  The  sight  is  not  the  prin- 
cipal sense.  Next  her  interest  in  animals  and  her  delight  in 
seeing  the  cows. 

"  When  about  five  months  old  she  thought  it  a  great  joke 
to  put  out  her  tongue  and  wet  her  mother's  cheek,  and  when 
she  had  done  it  she  laughed  a  roguish  little  laugh  that  was 
like  a  burst  of  sunshine.  But  by  degrees  she  ceased  to  laugh, 
and  then  would  not  perform  the  trick  at  all." 

"27  Dec.  ^'^■i>-  Dora  at  eleven  months.  She  gets  on  by 
such  imperceptible  advances  that  I  chronicle  httle  and  yet  the 
progress  lately  has  been  great.  For  the  last  month  or  so  she 
has  looked  for  sympathy  from  those  with  her.  It  is  a  grand 
step  when  the  child,  on  seeing  anything  that  greatly  pleases 
it,  turns  its  head  to  look  into  mother's  or  father's  face  and  see 
if  she  or  he  is  looking  and  enjoying  the  sight  too, 

"  The  growth  of  the  conscience  too  is  a  most  interesting 
study.  Some  animals,  dogs  at  least,  become  very  consci- 
entious, and  a  dog  knows  directly  when  he  has  done  wrong. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  the  dog  ever  tries  to  assert  its  will, 
or   ever  gets    angry  when    its  will  is   thwarted,   as  the  child 

X 


3o6  R.  H.  Quick 

does.  Dora,  from  about  the  age  of  ten  months,  has  not 
only  shown  a  desire  at  tunes  to  dutch  at  the  table-cloth 
and  pull  it,  but  in  doing  this  she  looks  up  at  us  with  a 
mischievous  smile  that  shows  she  knows  she  should  not. 
We  say  *  No,  no  ! '  seriously,  and  sometimes  she  gives  up 
the  attempt,  but  at  other  times  she  perseveres,  and  then 
when  she  is  taken  from  the  table  she  frowns  and  kicks 
and  screams  malevolently.  There  is  a  distinctly  human 
element  in  this." 

"27  April,  '84.  She  is  now  nearly  fifteen  months  old,  and 
for  the  last  ten  days  has  walked  alone.  The  eye  has  now 
become  the  leading  sense,  though  a  Httle  while  ago  she  cared 
more  for  sound  than  sight.  Still  she  is  much  pleased  with 
sound,  and  dances  and  sings  to  herself  when  I  play  the  fiddle 
to  her.  She  has  become  very  sharp  in  recognising  things  in 
pictures.  She  knows  the  picture  of  a  '  quack-quack,'  and 
when  a  new  picture  was  shown  her  with  very  small  geese  in 
the  background,  she  spotted  them  directly.  When  awake 
she  is  never  at  rest,  and  she  is  ever  handling  things  and 
naming  them.  Fur  is  a  great  delight  to  her,  and  she  cries 
'Poo!  Poo!'  (puss)  directly  she  catches  sight  of  anything 
furry.  She  is  very  proud  of  any  new  garment,  and  calls  our 
attention  to  it.  She  has  a  great  notion  of  attracting  strangers, 
especially  men.  Her  temper  is  at  times  violent,  and  reproof 
makes  her  angry  but  never  penitent.  She  is,  I  think,  less  of 
a  romp  than  she  was.  Her  talking  is  backward,  and  she 
begins  words  only ;  '  Br '  stands  for  '  brush,'  '  bitten,'  and 
anything  that  begins  with  a  b." 

"22  May,  '84.  To-day  I,  for  the  first  time,  heard  Dora 
(fifteen  months  old  on  the  first  of  this  month)  make  a  sen- 
tence. Her  mother  went  indoors  from  the  garden.  Dora 
called  after  her  and  then  ran  to  where  she  had  been.'  Not 
finding  her,  Dora  said,  '  Mammy  tata,'  evidently  meaning 
'  Mammy's  gone.' 

"  One  of  the  most  interesting  of  phenomena  is   the   ap- 


Dora  307 

pearance  of  what  theologians  call  '  sin,'  a  thing  for  which  the 
philosophers,  as  far  as  I  know,  have  not  been  able  to  hit  on 
a  name.  Dora  is  now  nearly  seventeen  months.  She  is,  of 
course,  always  wanting  to  go  here  and  go  there,  and  to  grasp 
and  hantUe  everything  within  reach.  The  question  arises 
how  far  is  she  to  have  the  free  play  of  her  own  will  ?  Either 
one  must  let  her  do  everything  she  can  do  without  mischief, 
or  must  thwart  her  at  every -turn,  or  one  must  subject  her  to 
one's  own  caprice.  I  think  the  first  course  best,  and  this  we 
have  adopted  ;  so  she  has  her  own  way  in  everything  except 
where  mischief  would  ensue.  To  this  necessary  control  she 
does  not  often  object,  but  at  times  she  resents  it.  More 
than  this,  she  occasionally,  though  very  rarely,  does  some- 
thing because  she  knows  it  is  wrong  to  do  it.  In  the  dining- 
room  we  have  hung  the  barometer  so  low  that  Dora  can 
reach  it.  She  has  got  into  a  habit  of  doing  things  which 
are  forbidden,  not  from  disobedience  so  much  as  from  a 
sense  of  fun  :  she  runs  to  the  door  and  then  sits  down  and 
laughs,  waiting  for  us  to  carry  her  away  from  it.  The  other 
day  she  went  to  the  barometer,  which  she  knows  she  ought 
not  to  touch.  At  first  she  looked  round  roguishly,  but  when 
her  mother  told  her  not  to  touch,  she  seemed  seized  with  a 
fit  of  wickedness ;  she  ceased  to  look  funny,  and  turning  to 
the  barometer,  she  caught  hold  of  it  and  shook  it  as  vigor- 
ously as  she  could.  When  she  was  carried  off  she  screamed 
violently.  Here  we  have  a  case  of  disobedience  to  law  just 
for  disobedience'  sake. 

"  In  her  babyhood  she  was  far  more  engaging  and  beauti- 
ful than  I  should  have  thought  possible  ;  and,  if  it  had  rested 
with  me,  I  doubt  if  I  should  have  been  able  to  persuade 
myself  to  let  her  grow  older." 

"  28  July,  '84.  She  is  now  near  the  end  of  her  first  year 
and  a  half.  It  is  wonderful  how  many  phases  of  life  are 
passed  through  in  the  first  eighteen  months.  Habits  have 
been    learned    and   unlearned,  tastes    have    shown  themselves 


3o8  R.  H.  Quick 

and  vanished,  things  which  for  a  time  excited  intense  in- 
terest have  been  forgotten  :  e.g.  a  picture  (a  very  poor  one) 
of  a  canal  at  the  top  of  an  ahiianack-sheet  that  hangs  in 
ray  study  was  an  immense  favourite  with  Dora.  She  began 
shouting  '  Daddah,  Daddah  ! '  {why  we  never  knew)  and 
going  for  it  directly  she  came  near  the  study.  Then  she 
went  for  a  visit  to  Brighton,  and  on  coming  back  in  five 
weeks  she  had  totally  forgotten  it.  She  did  not  notice  it 
when  brought  to  the  study,  and  she  stared  at  it  without 
seeming  recognition  or  the  slightest  interest  when  it  was 
held  up  to  her.  Some  months  ago  her  fondness  for  pic- 
tures, especially  some  pictures,  was  intense,  but  it  seems 
much  less  now  she  knows  the  objects  they  represent.  Calde- 
cott's  '  Frog  he  would  a  wooing  go '  was  a  great  delight 
of  hers,  and  she  went  through  a  regular  pantomime, 
bowing,  knocking,  dancing,  crying,  in  connection  with  it. 
The  book  having  come  to  pieces,  her  mother  has  pasted 
most  of  the  pictures  in  an  album,  but  in  this  form  Dora 
does  not  care  for  them.  Uncoloured  pictures  were  quite 
as  attractive  to  her  as  coloured,  which  was  contrary  to  my 
expectation. 

"  Another  thing  surprises  me  in  so  young  a  child  :  she 
seems  to  delight  in  little  jokes.  One  standing  joke  of  hers 
was  to  call  a  certain  dog  in  one  of  her  picture-books  '  Poo ' 
(puss)  just  in  order  to  be  put  right.  Just  at  present  she  is 
fond  of  pretending  to  do  all  sorts  of  things  that  have  been 
forbidden.  She  has  at  times  a  violent  temper,  and  throws 
away  passionately  anything  she  has  hurt  herself  with. 

"  The  only  pictures  Dora  dehghts  in  now  are  the  photo- 
graphs of  '  Gogo  '  as  she  calls  herself. 

"  What  a  lot  of  observation  has  been  given  to  bees  !  how 
very  httle  to  children  !  At  present  we  leave  the  most  difficult 
problems  to  be  settled  exclusively  by  nurses  or  even  by  young 
nursemaids. 

"The   first   thing   the   child   develops   is   the   will.      The 


Dora  309 

ordinary  manifestation  of  the  will  is  the  desire  to  get  this 
or  that.  What  would  be  the  effect,  I  wonder,  if  the  child 
were  systematically  denied  what  it  wanted  ?  The  result  could 
hardly  be  good  for  this  reason,  if  no  other  :  the  child  requires 
an  atinosphere  of  love  ;  this  denying  system  would  hardly  be 
possible  if  love  to  the  child  existed,  and  it  would  be  quite  im- 
possible if  love  to  the  child  were  to  be  shown.  But  the  child 
must  soon  learn  that  his  will  is  not  all-powerful.  He  will 
ask  for  some  things  that  could  not,  and  for  many  things  that 
should  not,  be  given.  The  ordinary  plan  in  these  cases  is  to 
divert  the  child's  attention,  and  as  the  attention  at  that  age 
is  inconstant,  this  is  pretty  easily  done.  When  no  deception 
is  practised  I  see  no  objection  to  this,  but  the  humouring  of 
the  child  will  not  always  do,  and  he  must  learn  that  if  he 
has  been  refused,  the  thing  is  quite  out  of  his  reach.  My 
little  pet  has  learnt  this  lesson,  and  there  is  seldom  any  dis- 
satisfaction shown  when  she  is  refused  anything.  A  greater 
difficulty  arises  when  the  will  of  the  child  simply  stands  on 
the  defensive.  We  have  been  very  careful  not  to  create  many 
mala  prohibiia.  It  is  better  to  suffer  some  small  inconven- 
iences by  letting  children  do  slight  mischief  so  long  as  they 
can  do  it  with  a  good  conscience.  But  Dora  has  been  told 
not  to  put  stones  on  the  grass.  She  took  a  fancy  for  filling 
her  hands  with  small  stones  and  strewing  them  on  the  lawn. 
This  was  at  once  forbidden.  Now  whenever  she  feels  naughty 
she  picks  up  stones  and  throws  them.  She  is  then  ordered 
to  take  them  off  and  she  won't.  We  take  her  hand  and 
close  it  over  the  stone  and  so  remove  it,  but  this  is  not 
exactly  obedience  in  the  child,  and  how  to  exact  obedience 
I  don't  know. 

"  Again,  she  will  take  it  into  her  head  not  to  say  good- 
night :  when  asked  she  turns  away  her  head  and  says,  '  No  ! 
No  ! '  Here  we  seem  quite  powerless.  I  suppose  we  shall 
have  to  make  her  feel  that  we  are  displeased. 

"  On  the  intellectual   side  I  have  observed  from  a  very 


3IO  R.  H.  Quick 

early  stage  memory  resulting  from  association.  After  taking 
the  newspaper  to  my  brother  in  his  bedroom  for  a  morning 
or  two,  she  began  to  clamour  'Uncle  Hed  (Fred)  paper!' 
directly  she  was  brought  to  our  room,  and  she  continued 
for  some  days  after  Fred  had  left  us.  She  was  very  easily 
taught  to  blow  on  a  watch  to  open  it,  and  this  sequence 
she  has  never  forgotten,  and  she  still  believes  in  it,  though 
she  has  seen  watches  opened  without  blowing.  I  observe 
that  she  confuses  between  things  somewhat  alike  :  e.g.  she 
puts  a  coiled-up  measuring  tape  to  her  ear,  expecting  it  to 
tick  like  a  watch,  and  she  called  a  grey  india-rubber  ball 
*  egg.' 

"  In  language  I  have  made  some  curious  observations. 
For  some  time  after  she  said  '  cook  '  quite  plainly  she  would 
not  go  on  to  '  book.'  When  told  to  say  it  she  said  '  boop.' 
Her  tongue  now  is  getting  nimble,  and  she  will  try  to  say  any 
word,  even  '  coryopsis,'  but  the  sounds  she  uses  with  meaning 
are  few.  Her  power  of  audition  is  far  beyond  her  power  of 
speech." 

"27  Sept.  '84.  Dora  is  just  on  nineteen  months  old.  She 
is  beginning  to  show  great  retentiveness.  To-day  she  heard 
someone  in  the  bath-room  and  said  'Auntie  Meemee '  (Emily). 
Emily  left  us  four  days  ago,  so  her  mother  said,  '  No  !  Auntie 
Meemee  gone  with  geegees.  Who  went  with  geegees  ? '  On 
which  Dora  said,  '  Auntie  Meemee,  Granny,  Uncle  Bill,'  and 
then  after  a  pause,  '  Uncle  Fed.'  This  was  really  a  feat  of 
memory,  for  Fred  left  us  four  weeks  ago." 

"  30  Sept.  '84.  It  is  very  interesting  to  observe  how  soon 
children  learn  to  understand  the  conventional  representation  of 
objects  or  pictures.  I  have  always  thought  that  most  pictures 
in  children's  books  were  too  small  and  too  conventional,  but 
to-day  Dora  (just  20  months  old)  took  a  postcard  and  called 
out  '  Geegee  !  geegee  ! '  At  first  we  could  not  think  what 
she  meant,  but  we  found  she  was  looking  at  the  tiny  unicorn 
in  the  royal  arms." 


Dora  3 1 1 

"21  Oct.  '84.  She  is  now  21  months  and  has  lately 
entered  on  the  dramatic  stage  of  existence.  She  plays  at 
giving  dolly  bread  and  milk  and  making  a  mess  in  feeding 
her.  It  is  very  amusing  to  see  her  put  the  spoon  to  dolly's 
mouth  and  take  it  away  again  saying,  '  Too  hot.' " 

"10  Nov.  '84.  The  language  of  signs  comes  before  the 
language  of  speech.  To-day  Dora  saw  me  out-of-doors  without 
my  hat.  She  was  at  the  window  upstairs  ready  to  go  out.  She 
put  her  hand  to  her  own  hat  to  protest,  just  as  a  grown  person 
might  have  done. 

"When  she  draws  (scribbling  is  a  great  amusement  of  hers 
just  now)  she  calls  the  pencil  a  pen  and  puts  an  empty  bowl 
for  ink  and  dips  the  pencil  in. 

"To-day  she  began  drawing  in  a  book  and  when  her 
mother  told  her  not  to,  she  scribbled  as  fast  as  she  could, 
knowing  she  would  be  stopped  directly.  When  put  out  she 
throws  things  about  with  violence. 

"  She  is  learning  the  nursery  rhymes  fast,  and  a  day  or 
two  ago  said,  'Who  goes  there?  a  grenadier'  all  through  by 
herself" 

"17  Nov.  '84.  My  dear  little  daughter  spends  a  great  part 
of  her  life  in  make-believes.  This  morning  she  got  a  new 
paint-brush  and  an  empty  bowl.  Then  she  went  to  work 
calling  out,  '  Gogo  paint.'  Dipping  her  brush  into  the  bowl 
she  proceeded  to  paint  the  furniture.  Then  she  came  to  me 
and  said,  '  Dada  paint  ! '  so  I  had  to  take  the  brush  and  paint 
a  chair  for  her.  We  were  both  quite  innocently  and  happily 
employed.  But  if  instead  of  make-believes  Dora  had  got  hold 
of  some  real  paint  she  would  indeed  have  got  into  the  world 
of  fact,  but  the  result  would  have  been  disastrous.  So  I  suppose 
that  even  Carlyle  would  leave  to  children  their  world  of  make- 
believes.  No  doubt  the  facts  of  life  are  infinitely  beautiful  and 
interesting  if  we  can  understand  them,  but  we  can't,  and  if  we 
have  no  material  for  thought  but  just  what  we  understand  and 
see  into,  we  may  in  the  end  only  be  puzzled  and  bored,  just  as 


312  R.  H.  Quick 

Dora  would  be,  if  we  set  ourselves  against  her  make-believes. 
This  sounds  a  highly  dangerous  Welt-ansicht  and  seems  to 
smack  of  the  philosophy  which  Maurice  (rightly  or  wrongly 
I  know  not)  attributed  to  Mansel,  a  philosophy  which  makes 
God  play  with  us  at  make-believes,  just  as  we  play  with  our 
children.  But  I  suppose  we  must  admit  that  in  the  small 
amount  of  thought  that  goes  on  in  our  brains  we  do  for  the 
most  part  play  at  make-believes,  or  at  least  take  most  things 
at  their  conventional  value  without  sturdily  examining  for 
ourselves." 

"24  Nov.  '84.  In  a  general  way  Dora  (now  nearly  22 
months  old)  is  very  good  and  fairly  obedient,  but  at  times  she 
has  freaks  of  naughtiness.  She  has  been  told  repeatedly  not 
to  put  her  hand  in  the  water-jug,  but  yesterday  in  a  fit  of 
naughtiness,  quite  unprovoked,  she  ran  across  the  room  and 
plunged  her  hand  and  arm  as  far  as  she  could  into  the  water. 
When  rebuked  she  roared,  but  was  not  at  all  penitent.  She 
was  rather  pleased  at  hearing  her  Aunt  told  that  she  was  a 
naughty  girl,  and  she  repeated  it  triumphantly.  She  tried  to 
scratch  her  mother  and  then  threw  herself  on  the  floor ;  from 
which  she  looked  up  and  laughed.  The  fit  does  not  last  long, 
but  while  it  is  on  her  she  seems  capable  of  any  mischief." 

"  26  Nov.  '84.  I  wonder  at  what  age  dreaming  begins. 
Dora  dreamt  last  night  of  a  big  dog  and  was  frightened  by  its 
barking.  She  cried  out  in  her  sleep,  '  Dog  not  bark  ! '  and  this 
morning  when  I  asked  her  she  remembered  and  said,  '  Dog 
bow-wow.'  " 

"  3  Dec.  '84.  Dora  has  now  at  the  age  of  22  months 
reached  the  stage  of  inquiry.  She  keeps  holding  up  this  or 
that  and  saying,  '  What  dat  ?  '  Directly  she  wants  knowledge 
not  by  Aiischauung  but  by  speech,  difficulties  begin.  In  some 
cases  the  answer  must  be  a  word,  because  nothing  but  a  name 
or  word  is  wanted,  e.g.  she  sees  in  a  picture-book  a  strange 
animal ;  she  knows  it  is  an  animal  and  all  she  wants  is  a  name 
to   differentiate  it.     You  say  '  goat '  and  the  answer  is  quite 


Dora  3 1 3 

satisfactory.  But  very  often  it  is  not  a  word  but  a  mental 
conception  tliat  the  child  is  asking  for.  What's  to  be  done 
then?  She  takes  up  a  thermometer  and  asks,  'What's  that?' 
If  you  say  'a  thermometer  '  you  are  only  (as  the  French  say) 
paying  the  child  with  words.  Rousseau  denounces  the  practice 
not  without  reason.  Yet,  as  in  learning  nursery  rhymes,  words 
must  often  precede  the  knowledge  of  things." 

"18  Dec.  '84.  Her  fondness  for  babies  is  very  remarkable. 
In  the  photograph  book  she  always  stops  at  a  baby.  She  has 
a  little  crockery-ware  baby  which  is  a  special  pet.  She  was 
delighted  when  I  played  at  being  '  a  big  baby  with  a  beard ' 
and  went  to  sleep  on  the  floor.  She  came  and  kissed  me 
spontaneously,  and  this  she  never  does  when  I  am  in  my  own 
person.  It  is  odd  how  strongly  maternal  instincts  show  them- 
selves in  a  child  less  than  two  years  old.  When  her  aunt  takes 
a  shawl  and  wraps  it  round  one  of  her  own  arms,  showing  her 
fist  as  a  baby's  head,  Dora  rocks  it  and  kisses  it  with  the  zeal  of 
an  affectionate  nurse, 

"  She  already  knows  tunes  apart  when  I  play  on  the 
violin." 

"21  Jan.  '85.  The  first  tune  she  has  sung  so  that  we 
could  clearly  recognise  it  is  '  John  Peil.'  She  can  also  distin- 
guish without  danger  of  mistake  '  Poor  Cock  Robin,'  '  Froggie 
would  a  wooing  go,'  and  '  Daddy  Neptune.'  It  is  a  lovely 
sight  when  she  dances  to  my  fiddle,  holding  out  her  frock  on 
both  sides, 

"  One  should  be  very  careful  not  to  frighten  children,  but 
it  is  difficult  to  avoid  it.  The  other  day  Hallam  made  a  noise 
like  a  fowl  and  Dora  was  frightened.  We  reassured  her,  but  it 
was  an  hour  or  two  before  she  forgot  it.  She  kept  on  saying 
as  if  for  her  own  relief,  '  Only  Mr.  Hallam  making  a  noise,'  " 

"  2  Feb.  '85.  Dora  was  two  years  old  yesterday.  She  has 
just  been  in  the  room  with  me  for  an  hour.  The  chief  thing 
that  strikes  me  is  the  incessant  activity  of  the  child.  She  is 
never  still  for  a  moment." 


314  R.  H.  Quick 

"  II  Feb.  '85.  Apparently  children  do  not  think  much  of 
cause  and  effect,  but  sequence  of  ideas  by  association  is  very 
strong  from  the  first.  I  once  took  out  my  false  teeth  when  I 
was  holding  Dora  on  the  window  sill  to  open  and  shut  the 
shutters.  Whenever  she  is  standing  there  she  asks  me  to  show 
her  my  teeth,  though  never  at  any  other  time. 

"  I  observe  a  strongly  developed  notion  of  her  own  dignity 
already.  She  has  fairly  learned  that  she  must  obey  an  edict  of 
mine  or  her  mother's,  but  she  disguises  her  submission  as  far 
as  possible.  If  she  has  something  in  her  hand  she  has  no 
business  with  and  I  say  '  Give  it  me,'  instead  of  giving  it  she 
puts  it  down  as  far  away  from  me  as  possible.  Rightly  or 
wrongly  I  acquiesce  in  this  modified  obedience." 

"3  March,  '85.  She  can  now  count  properly  up  to  three, 
and  is  nearly  always  right  when  I  ask  her,  '  How  many  spots?' 
with  the  one,  two,  and  three  dominoes.  My  notion  is  not  to 
let  her  know  at  present  any  number  above  three  and  to  say  for 
any  higher  number  '  lots  of  spots.'  It  might  no  doubt  be 
argued  that  according  to  the  order  of  nature  we  advance  to 
accurate  knowledge  through  inaccurate,  and  that  accuracy  in 
the  earlier  stages  is  impossible,  however  such  limits  may  be 
attempted  by  the  elder  intelligence.  Even  with  my  limit  of 
three  Dora  is  not  quite  certain.  I  should  like  to  try  some 
number  cards  for  children  on  which  the  spots  or  objects  taken 
as  units  should  be  arranged  in  every  possible  order.  This  of 
course  is  pretty  much  Grubeism." 

"10  March,  '85.  Her  temptations  to  naughtiness  do  not 
seem  to  come  very  often.  The  other  day  when  I  would  not 
get  into  the  cradle  as  she  wished  she  took  my  hand  and  tried 
to  scratch  it.  When  she  has  done  wrong  she  does  not  seem 
sorry,  but  much  interested  by  her  performance,  and  rather 
inclined  to  boast  of  it.  We  looked  grave  and  told  her  she  was 
not  a  good  girl,  but  she  only  kept  on  saying  half  to  herself, 
'  Cratch  dadda's  hand  ! '  " 

"13    March,  '85.      People   seldom  understand   that   if  a 


Dora  3 1 5 

whole  class  of  persons  fall  into  a  particular  fault  tliere  must 
be  something  in  the  circumstances  to  make  that  fault  all  but 
inevitable.  We  observe  nurses  humbugging  children  and  think 
how  foolish  tliey  are  ;  but  perhnp.s  if  we  had  to  take  constant 
care  of  children  we  might  give  way  to  temptation  ourselves. 
To-day  I  had  Dora  out  with  me  and  I  found  how  very  difficult 
it  was  to  get  her  along.  There  being  in  her  no  will  to  get  on 
and  no  habit,  everything  that  caught  her  eye  in  the  hedge  or 
road  brought  about  a  stoppage,  and  when  she  started  again  she 
was  as  likely  to  go  one  way  as  another.  In  these  circumstances 
the  ordinary  nurse  naturally  thinks  only  how  her  immediate 
end  is  to  be  gained  and  does  not  treat  the  child  like  a  sane 
person.  Thus  the  child  soon  finds  out  that  what  it  is  told  is 
often  not  true,  and  when  its  elders  use  words  for  deceit,  it 
follows  suit." 

"3  June,  '85.  Dora  is  now  fl  years  old,  and  this  is  the 
first  spring  she  has  observed  wild  flowers.  I  have  just  had  a 
delightful  little  walk  with  her  up  the  path  from  the  Vicarage  to 
the  Union.  Dora  said  in  starting,  *  Up  steep  hill,  lot  of  pile- 
worts  ! '  and  we  found  she  was  right  as  we  went  up  the  path. 
These  she  knew  quite  well.  But  like  all  teachers  I  wanted  to 
get  on  too  fast.  I  showed  her  a  buttercup,  which  of  course 
she  called  a  pilewort.  I  observe  that  though  she  is  remarkably 
quick  in  observing  similarities  and  in  recognising  the  same 
thing  with  alterations,  she  has  little  power  of  observing  differ- 
ences. The  other  day  when  Wadeson  (ordained  last  Sunday) 
came  back  in  clerical  attire,  I  at  first  glance  thought  he  was 
someone  else,  but  Dora  knew  him  without  any  hesitation.  This 
morning  when  Mr  Martin,  the  carpenter,  came,  whom  she  does 
not  know,  she  saw  his  grey  beard  and  said,  '  Mr  Punch  ! '  as 
Punch  has  a  similar  beard,  though  no  other  point  of  re- 
semblance. 

"  To  go  back  to  the  walk  and  the  flowers,  I  was  surprised 
to  find  how  many  Dora  knew  —  dandelion,  violet,  daisy,  blue- 
bell—  these  she  recognised  besides  the  pilewort.    In  giving  her 


3i6  R.  H.  Qiiick 

more  flowers  one  was  at  once  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
great  problem  for  the  teacher  —  shall  we  carefully  limit  the  area 
for  impressions,  allow  very  few  and  seek  to  make  them  accurate 
and  permanent  before  passing  on,  or  shall  we  do  as  Nature 
seems  to  do  —  give  out  a  number  of  impressions  and  let  them 
clear  and  classify  themselves  later  on?  My  favourite  plan  is 
the  first,  but  when  a  child  asks,  '  What's  this  ?  What's  this  ? '  it 
is  hard  to  refuse  the  information  asked  for.  I  showed  her  too 
many  flowers  this  morning,  but  I  devoted  myself  especially  to 
getting  her  to  recognise  the  speedwell.  She  was  much  taken 
with  the  flower  when  I  showed  it  her  and  asked  the  name.  I 
told  her,  but  she  seemed  to  have  a  difficulty  in  remembering, 
and  when  I  showed  her  other  specimens,  I  had  to  '  wips '  — 
whisper  or  prompt.  I  gave  her  a  stellaria,  and  the  longer  name 
seemed  to  strike  her  fancy. 

"  Her  memory  sometimes  surprises  us.  She  sent  a  present 
of  a  little  Japanese  tortoise  to  the  Lewis  children  seven  months 
ago,  and,  though  this  had  not  been  mentioned  since,  she  spoke 
of  it  a  day  or  two  ago  when  she  saw  a  similar  tortoise." 

"27  June,  '85.  Dora  in  general  is  a  very  good  child  now, 
but  she  is  disobedient  at  times,  and  her  disobedience  is  often 
mere  self-assertion.  One  thinks  of  the  humility  of  children,  and 
yet  children  often  go  wrong  for  want  of  humility.  It  seems  to 
Dora  infra  dig.  to  do  just  what  she  is  told,  and  she  obeys  with 
a  difference.  Sometimes  she  disobeys  apparently  for  the  simple 
pleasure  of  self-assertion.  A  few  days  back  I  told  her  not  to 
touch  my  fiddle-strings  near  the  bridge.  I  said  she  might  touch 
them  near  the  screws  ;  but  she  at  once  put  her  hand  on  the 
forbidden  part.  I  spoke  seriously  to  her  and  she  looked 
frightened,  and  cried  in  such  a  piteous  way,  not  loudly  or 
angrily,  that  I  was  half  inclined  to  cry  too.  How  sad  it  is  to 
come  suddenly  on  the  sterner  realities  of  life  and  tremble  at 
the  abysses  that  seem  to  open  before  us  !  I  do  trust  it  will 
please  God  to  make  me  a  refuge  for  my  darling  when  the 
abysses   yawn,   not   the   enchanter  who   opens   them.     It  is 


Dora  3 1 7 

wonderful  how  the  least  suspicion  of  harshness  in  the  tone 
is  felt  by  Dora.  I  can't  bear  to  speak  of  my  dear  little  girl  as 
wanting  in  anything  lovable,  for  any  being  more  intensely 
lovable  it  is  hard  to  conceive  in  human  form,  but  at  times  she 
asserts  herself,  as  I  have  mentioned. 

"  Already  she  has  a  great  notion  of  putting  away  childish 
things  — '  Dora  does  not  say  "  thanky,"  Dora  says  "  thank  you." ' 
Anything  she  thinks  an  advance,  as  '  father,'  for  *  dad,'  she 
adopts  directly.  I  am  glad  to  find  how  fond  she  is  of  doing 
everything  all  by  herself.  She  won't  have  help  unless  her  own 
powers  entirely  fail. 

"  One  sees  even  at  this  early  age  the  rudiments  of  some 
intellectual  failings  that  trouble  most  people.  She  had  been 
looking  at  a  picture  of  an  undergraduate  in  an  old  book  and 
spoke  of  it  as  a  girl.  I  hadn't  examined  it,  so  I  said,  '  Dad 
thinks  it's  a  boy.'  She  after  a  pause,  '  Dora  thinks  it's  a  girl.' 
I  looked  at  it  and  said,  '  No,  dear.  Dad  knows  it's  a  boy.' 
*  Dora  k?ifl7vs  it's  a  girl,'  was  the  prompt  reply.  The  tendency 
to  resist  any  disturbance  of  error  as  an  interference  with  the 
right  of  property  is  very  wide  spread.  Again,  the  mere 
possession  of  a  name  is  often  taken  for  an  explanation  —  a  very 
common  form  of  what  the  French  call  paying  ourselves  with 
words.  There  was  a  little  pocket-compass  on  the  table  :  '  What's 
this?'  asked  Dora.  *A  compass,  dear,'  said  I,  and  she  seemed 
quite  satisfied  and  kept  repeating,  '  It's  a  compass  ! '  " 

"  10  July,  '85.  The  conception  of  number  advances  very 
slowly,  and  though  Dora  (now  2^  years  old)  can  count  cor- 
rectly up  to  six,  yet  I  don't  think  she  has  any  clear  con- 
ception of  any  number  beyond  two.  To-day  I  held  up  3 
fingers  and  asked  '  How  many  ? '  She  at  once  began  to  count 
them  '  I,  2,  3,'  then  counted  one  a  second  time  and  said  '4 
fingers.'  " 

"5  Sept.  '85.  Dora  (two  years  and  seven  months)  is  just 
arrived  at  the  age  of  asking  questions.  Yesterday  she  asked 
the  housemaid,  who  was  cleaning  the  grate,  '  Where  do  ases 


3i8  R.  //.  Quick 

(ashes)  come  from?'  To-day  she  asked  her  mother  the  more 
puzzUng  (question,  '  Mother,  where  do  babies  come  from?' 

"  She  is  wonderfully  observant.  She  tries  experiments  to 
see  what  will  be  allowed.  The  other  day  she  called  with  her 
mother  at  the  C's.     She  was  very  careful  to  say  '  Please  '  and 

*  Thank  you.'  When  she  came  away  she  said  to  her  mother, 
Dora  said  'Please'  and  'Thank  you,'  but  Dora  says  to  father 

*  Dora  wants  more.'  This  she  said  quite  in  a  different  tone. 
I  suppose  she  had  tried  experiments  on  me  and  found  I  had 
not  resented  it." 

"  1 6  Sept.  '85.  Dora  is  not  yet  2  years  8  months  old. 
This  seems  young  for  a  child  to  have  an  eye  for  the  beauties 
of  nature  but  Dora  not  only  delights  in  flowers,  but  yesterday 
evening  she  became  quite  excited  about  the  '  lubly  colours,'  as 
she  said,  in  the  sunset  sky." 

"13  Oct.  '85.  Dora's  intonation  has  from  the  first  as- 
tonished and  delighted  us.  It  has  not  come  of  imitation, 
for  she  has  always  spoken  with  much  more  emphasis  than  any 
one  about  her.  But  her  play  of  voice  and  the  admirable  way 
in  which  she  conveys  her  meaning  and  feehng  by  stress  on  par- 
ticular words  might  well  be  envied  by  the  greatest  elocutionists. 

"  Another  thing  I  have  observed.  Although  the  play  of 
voice  is  so  great,  she  at  times  sings  what  she  wants  to  say, 
often  to  a  known  melody,  sometimes  to  simple  recitative  that 
she  invented  for  herself.  Her  memory  for  poetry  is  good,  and 
she  thoroughly  enters  into  the  meaning  of  what  she  says.  Her 
rendering  of 

"  Dear  mother,  said  a  little  fish, 
Pray  is  not  that  a  fly  ?  " 

is  admirable. 

"  A  strange  mark  of  her  acuteness  is  that  she  knows  when 
she  does  not  understand.  She  was  told  to-day  that  nurse 
would  not  be  back  for  an  hour.  'What's  an  hour?'  asked 
Dora,     '  The  time  between  i  o'clock  and  2  o'clock,'  said  her 


Dora  319 

mother.  'You  see  that's  what  I  don't  understand  yet,'  said 
Dora. 

"  She  has  a  great  notion  of  adapting  words  and  parodying. 
She  knows  '  Pop  goes  the  weasel,'  and  when  nurse  talked 
to-day  of  popping  the  jersey  over  her  head,  Dora  said,  '  Pop 
goes  the  jersey.'  I  should  not  have  expected  this  wit  at  2 
years  8  months." 

"  I  Nov.  '85.  Her  taste  for  the  beauties  of  nature  still 
shows  itself.  Though  only  2  years  and  9  months  she  said  to 
me  to-day  like  a  grown-up  person,  '  See  how  pretty  the  top 
of  Winder  [our  hill]  is  getting.'  The  evening  sun  was  just 
catching  the  snow  on  the  top." 

"14  Nov.  '85.  Dora  has  a  bad  cold.  '  My  cold  is  getting 
worse  as  worse,'  she  said  to-day.  She  is  very  soft-hearted. 
In  showing  her  Caldecott  s  '  Froggy  would  a-wooing  go'  her 
mother  made  Mrs  Froggy  say,  '  Oh  don't  go  away.'  This  is 
now  too  much  for  Dora,  whose  eyes  fill  with  tears  and  she  says, 
'  But  he  ivill  come  back  again,'  and  her  mother  has  now  to 
vary  the  legend  and  suppress  the  lily  white  duck." 

"  29  Nov.  '85.  Dora's  perception  of  a  joke  was  remark- 
able at  a  very  early  age.  Yesterday  she  called  out  to  me, 
'  Father,  bring  me  my  spoon  ! '  Her  mother  said,  '  Dora,  you 
forgot  something.'  '  Yes,'  said  Dora.  *  What  was  it?  '  said  her 
mother.  We  both  expected  '  Please,'  as  Dora  well  knew,  but 
she  determined  to  give  us  what  we  did  not  expect.  '  What 
is  it?'  repeated  her  mother.     'Hurry  up!'  said  Dora." 

"5  Dec.  '85.  The  greater  part  of  the  day  Dora  is  as 
good  as  gold,  but  she  still  has  her  naughty  fits,  generally  when 
she  is  tired.  A  night  or  two  ago  her  mother,  who  had  Oliver 
asleep  in  her  arms,  asked  Dora  who  was  by  the  door  to  open 
it.  Dora  hesitated ;  a  struggle  was  going  on  whether  she 
should  obey  or  not.  The  Ahriman  in  her  prevailed  ;  she  put 
her  left  hand  with  a  toy  in  it  to  the  handle  and  said  she  could 
not.     Still  refusing  she  was  taken  upstairs  screaming  frantically 


320  R.  //.  Qtiick 

with  rage.  Presently  I  brought  her  back  to  the  drav/ing-room. 
Her  mother  told  her  to  dry  her  eyes  and  offered  her  a  pocket- 
handkerchief.  Dora  refused  and  demanded  her  own  hand- 
kerchief.    Exit  a  second  time  screaming. 

"  Since  the  above  incident  Dora  has  always  been  most 
anxious  to  open  the  door  for  her  mother  and  runs  to  it  if  she 
thinks  her  mother  wants  it  opened.  This  is  a  very  sweet  sign 
of  penitence.  The  day  after  the  incident  Dora  said,  '  Sing 
[tell  a  story]  about  Dora  not  opening  the  door.'  Her  mother 
said,  '  No,  we  don't  sing  about  that :  Dora  was  not  a  good  girl.' 
Dora  did  not  recur  to  the  subject." 

"9  Dec.  '85.  Her  sense  of  fun  is  very  delightful.  To- 
day she  pretended  to  be  '  Mr  Cockadoo,'  and  as  she  knew 
we  should  pretend  to  be  shocked  she  bawled  out  in  a  big 
voice,  'This  is  a  jolly  field!'  and  then  'This  is  a  stunning 
field!'  and  when  we  said,  'That's  shocking,  Mr  Cockadoo,' 
she  shrieked  with  laughter." 

"15  Jan.  '86.  What  a  freshness  there  is  about  a  child's 
use  of  language.  '  Unbedient '  for  'disobedient,'  'dentister' 
for  *  dentist,'  are  recent  creations  of  Dora's.  One  of  her  phrases 
has  quite  an  American  twang.  On  getting  a  good  help  of 
pudding  at  dinner  she  exclaimed,  '  What  an  all-mankind  lot ! ' 
It  evidently  came  from  '  While  shepherds  watched '  &c.,  the 
carol  with  which  she  has  been  much  taken  this  last  Xmas." 

"  29  Jan.  '86.  We  have  had  our  first  serious  trouble  with 
Dora,  she  has  had  fits  of  temper  lately,  but  with  admirable 
tact  and  patience  her  mother  has  always  brought  the  child  to 
do  what  was  required.  To-day  however  she  was  disobedient 
and  persistently  sulked.  Finally  her  mother  carried  her  into 
the  nursery  and  whipped  her.  The  child  was  a  little  frightened, 
but  not  the  least  penitent.  She  at  length  did  what  she  had 
been  bid  (to  carry  a  ring  to  the  nursery)  but  howled  all  the 
way.  It  was  clear  that  such  a  collision  would  come.  Hitherto 
Dora  has  not  understood  that  her  parents'  will  must  prevail." 


Dora  321 


Dora  at  3  yrs.  2  w. 

"  6  April,  '86.  She  is  singularly  intelligent  for  her  age. 
She  remembers  names  very  readily  and  picks  up  new  words 
with  ease.  She  is  very  anxious  to  get  at  the  meaning  of  words 
and  asks  about  them. 

"  As  to  numbers,  though  she  can  count  up  to  10,  she  is  not 
sure  of  any  number  of  things  beyond  3.  She  has  not  for  a 
long  time  played  at  the  hiding  game,  and  I  thought  she  had 
outgrown  it,  but  to-day  she  said  to  her  mother,  '  I'll  hide  in 
Bradley's  room  and  you  say,  '  Where  is  my  little  girl  gone  to?  ' 
and  look  everywhere  for  me  : '  and  when  I  played  the  game  with 
her  she  told  me  all  the  rooms  I  was  to  look  in  before  I  found 
her.  She  has  been  romping  away,  first  as  '  Organ  boy,'  and 
then  as  '  Oliver,'  and  such  happiness  communicates  itself  and 
gives  the  greatest  pleasure  I  know  of.  I  cannot  believe  that  all 
this  beauty  and  joy  will  vanish  like  a  lovely  sunset  and  leave 
no  trace  and  no  result.  There  must  be  some  result  of  good, 
or  some  good  in  the  end  greater  still. 

"  It  is  hard  to  understand  many  movements  of  the  childish 
mind.  Why  does  it  delight  in  exact  repetition,  even  including 
the  accidentals?  Yesterday  I  crossed  my  legs  and  jumped 
Dora  on  one  of  my  feet,  taking  her  hands  in  mine.  I  happened 
to  have  a  letter  in  one  hand,  so  I  put  it  into  ray  mouth  to  hold. 
Soon  after  I  gave  Dora  a  second  ride.  When  she  got  on  my 
foot  she  said,  '  Put  the  letter  in  your  mouth.'  " 

"  30  April,  '86.  Dora  is  generally  a  very  good  child,  but 
when  she  does  anything  which  she  knows  to  be  wrong  she  is 
afterwards  rather  proud  of  it  than  repentant.  More  than  this, 
she  at  times  tries  to  make  out  that  she  has  done  bad  things 
which  she  would  not  do.  The  other  day  in  throwing  about 
her  skipping-rope  she  hit  her  mother  on  the  head  with  the 
handle  and  hurt  her.     The  child  was  playing  in  perfect  good 

Y 


322  R.  H.   Quick 

temper  and  the  blow  was  the  purest  accident ;  but  directly  it 
had  happened  an  evil  spirit  seemed  to  seize  Dora.  Her  face 
instead  of  showing  concern  grew  defiant,  and  when  her  mother 
said,  '  I  knew  my  little  girl  did  not  mean  to  hurt  me,'  Dora 
said,  '  Yes,  I  did  ! '  quite  fiercely." 

Dora  at  3^- 

"17  May,  '86.  She  often  shows  a  singular  power  of  obser- 
vation and  memory.  The  day  before  yesterday  we  showed  her 
a  cuckoo-plant  flower.  To-day  in  the  fields  she  said,  *  Here's 
another  cuckoo.'  I  asked  her  why  she  thought  so  and  she 
said,  '  It's  the  leaf.'  There  was  no  flower  of  any  kind.  This 
was  singular,  as  grown  people  do  not  often  observe  the 
leaves." 

"  I  June,  "&().  This  too  was  'cute  for  a  child  of  t^\.  At 
dinner  her  mother  asked  me  whether  I  would  have  some  '  tap.' 
Dora  asked  why  she  said  '  tap.'  *  Because  it's  too  much  trouble 
to  say  tapioca.'  Directly  after  Dora  turned  to  me,  '  Will  you 
have  some  ere'?     It's  too  much  trouble  to  say  '  cream.'  " 

"11  May,  '86.  Oliver  is  now  nearly  11  months  old.  He 
is  getting  very  intelligent.  For  some  time  (nearly  three  months 
back)  he  used  to  lie  agaze  at  his  own  hand,  close  his  fist, 
open  it,  and  turn  his  fingers  about,  with  keen  interest.  Now 
he  shows  signs  of  intending  to  do  more  than  he  knows  how  to 
do.  He  takes  a  ball,  e.g.,  and  tries  to  push  or  throw  it  to  his 
mother  or  me,  and  will  even  turn  from  one  of  us  to  try  and  get 
it  to  the  other.  He  imitates  vowel  sounds  and  intervals,  but 
except  '  Dad '  (without  meaning)  he  does  not  attempt  con- 
sonants." 

Oliver  at  one  year 

"  2  June,  '86.  It  is  delightful  to  see  how  early  the  generous 
instincts  show  themselves.     Oliver  is  now  in  his  12th  month 


Dora  and  Oliver  323 

and  for  some  time  he  has  tried  to  share  his  pleasures  with  us. 
If  he  hkes  the  taste  of  anything  he  at  once  holds  it  out  by 
turns  to  his  mother  and  me  that  we  may  have  the  benefit  of  it 
too." 


Dora  and  Oliver 

"15  June,  '86.  Dora  is  now  beginning  to  perplex  herself 
with  the  great  problems  of  existence.  She  asks  her  mother  how 
the  baa-lambs  like  having  their  legs  cut  off.  Her  mother  says 
they  are  dead  and  don't  feel.  '  Shall  we  die  ?  '  asks  Dora.  '  Yes, 
some  day.'  Dora,  '  But  I  suppose  the  great  God  will  make  us 
walk  about  again  ?  Will  He  make  the  baa-lambs  walk  about 
again?'  " 

"17  June,  '86.  Oliver  now  within  4  days  of  a  year  old. 
AVhat  restless  activity  there  is  in  a  child  !  He  sets  himself 
little  problems  —  e.g.  he  gets  hold  of  a  tin  jug,  pulls  the  lid 
off,  and  tries  to  put  it  on  again,  it  falls  off  twenty  times 
but  still  he  perseveres,  and  at  last  it  stays.  He  then  looks 
up  and  laughs  triumphantly  and  expects  us  to  join  in  his 
delight.  Off  comes  the  lid  again  and  the  process  is  repeated 
de  novo. 

"  He  is  a  great  imitator  and  clever  in  the  language  of  signs. 
To-day  in  the  perambulator  he  took  a  fancy  for  pulling  off  my 
hat  (a  favourite  trick  of  his),  so  he  put  his  hand  up  to  his  own 
and  then  pointed  to  mine.  He  has  a  very  strong  will  of  his 
own  and  shows  great  tantrums  when  it  is  thwarted.  His  de- 
light in  cows  is  very  intense,  and  he  sets  off  moo-ing  direcUy 
he  catches  sight  of  them. 

"  His  mother  to-day  said  he  was  a  naughty  boy,  whereupon 
Dora  came  up  and  slapt  him.  When  reproved  she  howled  and 
was  put  out  into  the  spare  room  roaring.  Afterwards  she  said 
that  when  sh.e  was  roaring  she  was  sure  the  horse  in  the  field 
watched  her,  he  looked,  about  so." 


324  J^'  J^^'  Quick 


Dora's  First  Reading  Lesson 

"  1 2  July,  '86.  A  week  ago  I  wrote  on  a  slip  of  paper  in 
large  i)rinting  letters  '  This  is  '  and  on  others  '  Dora,'  '  Father,' 
'  Mother.'  I  showed  them  to  Dora  and  she  was  soon  able  to 
recognise  all  but  the  first,  and  she  is  not  yet  quite  sure  about 
'  This  is.'  By  putting  them  together  I  make  sentences  for  her 
to  read  'This  is  Mother,'  &c.  I  want  to  get  a  small  stock  of 
words  thoroughly  learnt  in  this  way,  and  then  to  treat  them 
analytically  :  e.g.  If  a  child  knows  '  This  '  and  '  is '  one  might 
cover  up  the  77/  oi  this  or  put  Th  before  />." 

"  26  July,  '86.  I  find  that  words  she  is  interested  in  she 
learns  quickly  and  remembers  well.  She  is  quite  on  the  spot 
with  Dora  —  Quick  —  Barbara  —  Strawberry  (names  of  cows) 
but  this,  is,  a  she  does  not  remember." 

"  14  July,  '86.  We  often  think  the  metaphors  of  the 
'  metaphysical '  poets  forced  and  wholly  unnatural,  but  some 
of  them  are  natural  to  children.  The  other  day  Dora  said  to 
her  mother,  '  The  roses  have  had  a  bath  and  are  all  wet.  The 
sun's  their  towel  and  is  coming  out  to  dry  them.'  This  is 
quite  in  Cowley's  style." 

"  2  Aug.  '86.  Dora  made  me  laugh  at  dinner  to-day  by 
a  funny  muddle  between  the  subjective  and  objective.  She 
fixed  her  eyes  on  a  lamp-hook  in  the  ceiling  and  tried  some 
optical  experiments  by  shaking  her  head.  Then  she  turned 
to  me,  '  Just  see  how  that  thing  in  the  ceiling  looks  when  I 
shake  my  head  ! '  " 

"  4  Aug.  '86.  I  have  this  morning  given  Dora  a  reading 
lesson.  She  was  not  much  inclined  for  one,  but  I  told  her 
we  had  very  often  to  do  what  we  didn't  want  to  do.  '  Do  you 
have  to  write  letters  when  you  don't  want  to?'  asked  Dora. 
But  the  lesson  pleased  her  very  well  after  all. 

"  There  is  a  vast  advantage  to  the  teacher  in  thus  dealing 
with  the  problem  '  in  its  lowest  terms,'  so  to  speak. 


Dora  and  Oliver  325 

"  Dora  now  can  recognise  twelve  words,  but  she  is  not  very 
certain  of  \h.&  forms :  she  fixes  her  attention  on  some  pecuHarity 
of,  say  the  first  letter.  The  M  in  '  Mary '  got  a  Httle  smudged, 
and  Dora  looks  mainly  at  the  smudge.  But  some  words  she 
knows,  for  when  I  wrote  '  This  is  a  cow,'  she  read  it  off 
straight.  She  is  pleased  when  she  makes  out  a  sentence,  and 
when  she  had  made  out  '  Strawberry  is  a  cow,'  she  said  with 
great  emphasis,  '  And  that  is  true.'  " 

"9  Aug.  '86.  One  of  the  first  characteristics  we  observe 
in  young  children  is  their  delight  in  what  they  manage  to  do 
themselves,  and  next  their  desire  to  get  others  to  share  with 
them  in  their  delight. 

"  Oliver  (between  thirteen  and  fourteen  months)  is  always 
doing  something  or  other,  and  when  this  morning  he  surprised 
himself  by  his  success  in  putting  a  lid  on  to  a  box  he  came 
and  pulled  his  mother's  dress  and  drew  her  attention  to  it, 
that  she  might  see  what  he  had  done.  The  use  of  the  hands 
comes  long  before  the  use  of  the  tongue.  Why  is  almost  all 
instruction  given  to  the  tongue,  or  if  to  the  hands,  only  as  the 
servants  of  the  tongue? 

"  One  of  Oliver's  great  amusements  is  getting  hold  of  a 
book  and  opening  and  shutting  it.  He  likes  pictures  very 
well,  but  on  the  whole  prefers  opening  and  shutting  the 
book." 

"11  Aug.  '86.  I  find  the  associations  between  the 
symbols  of  the  words  and  the  words  themselves  are  found  very 
slowly.  Dora  knows  her  12  words  very  fairly  after  a  month's 
acquaintance  with  them  (never  more  than  ten  minutes  a  day), 
but  still  she  is  not  quite  safe.  To-day  when  I  gave  her 
'Strawberry'  by  itself  she  read  'Cow,'  just  like  the  child 
in  Disraeli's  Vivian  Grey,  who  insists  that  A-p-e  spelt 
'  Monkey.' 

"  Observing  how  slowly  the  ideas  of  form  and  sound  are 
arbitrarily  connected  one  gets  a  notion  of  the  chief  source  of 
bad    teaching.      The   grown-ups    have    got    all    these    things 


326  R.  H.  Quick 

associated  by  years  of  constant  use  and  they  cannot  under- 
stand, or  at  least  realise,  that  there  is  no  natural  connection 
between  them,  and  that  the  associations  come  very  slowly 
even  in  the  minds  of  clever  children." 

"  24th  Aug.  '86.  Just  as  in  teaching  children  we  see 
knowledge  in  its  elements,  so  in  observing  them  we  see  feelings 
acting  without  any  of  the  cloaks  which  dissimulation  provides 
for  the  feelings  of  grown-up  people. 

"  Dora  when  she  hurt  herself  to-day  rushed  at  me  and 
slapped  me,  tho'  she  knew  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  hurt 
that  had  produced  her  bad  temper. 

"  Just  now  she  wanted  to  look  into  the  cupboard  where  I 
keep  toys  for  schoolchildren,  &c.  I  let  her  look  in  on  the 
distinct  understanding  that  nothing  was  to  be  taken  out.  She 
could  not  resist  asking,  however,  and  was  of  course  refused. 
This  produced  a  short-lived  ill-temper.  It's  expression  was 
peculiar.  She  said,  '  I  don't  like  any  of  my  things  ;  they  are 
so  ugly 


> )» 


Dora  Teaching 

"11  Oct.  '86.  The  chief  thing  that  strikes  me  at  present  is 
that  the  simplest  intellectual  acts  are  performed  at  first  with 
much  difficulty  and  the  habit  which  makes  them  automatic  is 
very  slowly  acquired. 

"  I  have  been  some  weeks  at  work  with  the  five  cubes  I 
use  to  teach  numbers,  and  by  varying  the  play  with  them 
Dora's  attention  is  kept  up  ;  but  the  only  thing  she  can  do  with 
certainty  is  to  count  them  from  one  to  five,  and  even  here  she 
sometimes  goes  wrong.  To-day  I  got  her  to  make  two 
columns,  one  of  three  cubes  and  the  other  of  two,  but  she  had 
no  notion  how  many  cubes  there  were  altogether.  When  I 
said  Count  !  she  counted  one,  two,  three,  and  then  one,  two, 
but  3  +  2  was  quite  beyond  her. 


Dora  and  Oliver  327 

[I  was  talking  the  other  day  to  a  National  School  child  of 
seven  in  Standard  I,  who  had  to  '  write  tables.'  The  process 
with  her  consisted  in  putting  down  a  lot  of  figures  in  columns, 
and  then  some  lines  crossed  anyhow  and  then  =,  but  the 
symbols  stood  for  nothing.  She  could  not  tell  me  how  many 
12  and  I  made,  and  when  I  asked  a  lower  number  (5  and  i) 
she  answered  wrong.  The  marvel  is,  not  that  the  children 
in  elementary  schools  are  bad  in  arithmetic,  but  that  they 
ever  learn  anything  at  all.  In  the  first  stage  they  need 
good  teaching  and  much  individual  attention  and  they  get 
neither.] 

"  To  return  to  Dora.  To-day  she  sat  in  a  chair  and  I 
threw  the  cubes  into  her  lap,  she  counting  them  as  they  came. 
Then  she  threw  them  one  by  one  back,  and  said  each  time 
how  many  were  left,  but  she  always  counted  them  before  she 
gave  the  number.  I  feel  more  and  more  that  in  the  early 
stages  teachers  attempt  too  much. 

"  To-day  I  tried  a  new  plan  which  had  the  advantage  of 
immensely  interesting  the  child  and  may  be  a  good  means  of 
teaching.  I  took  five  pennies  and  gave  her  five,  and  we 
played  '  Eggs  in  the  Bush.'  Five  was  to  be  the  greatest  num- 
ber used.  She  will  by  this  game  soon  learn  differences  up  to 
five." 

"14  Oct.  '86.  She  still  cannot  get  a  conception  of  num- 
ber beyond  three.  She  said  to-day  about  four,  '  I  cannot 
make  it  on  my  mind.     Can  you  make  it  on  your  mind  ? '  " 


Dora^s  Lessons 

"  19  Oct.  '86.  The  old  difficulty  about  compulsion  soon 
crops  up. 

"  My  object  has  been  to  make  Dora  like  her  lessons.  I 
know  all  that  may  be  said  about  the  discipline  derived  from 


328  R.  H.  Quick 

doing  what  we  don't  like,  but  I  also  know  that  before  a 
child  can  exert  its  ])owers  of  observation  or  reflection,  there 
must  be  first  a  willing  mind,  so  I  want  Dora  to  like  her 
lessons. 

*''  But  continuous  attention  even  for  five  minutes  requires 
some  effort,  and  the  effort  is  already  becoming  distasteful.  I 
play  '  Eggs  in  the  Bush,'  and  '  Odd  and  Even,'  but  though 
these  are  fairly  successful  Dora  does  not  yet  enter  into  the 
notion  of  winning  and  losing.  Then  for  the  reading  she  knows 
about  fifteen  or  twenty  words  very  fairly,  but  she  does  not 
recognise  them  as  we  do  without  conscious  effort,  and  she  is 
at  present  by  no  means  keen  on  making  sentences  or  building 
words  with  printed  letters. 

"  Shall  I  give  up  the  reading  for  a  bit  and  let  her  lose 
again  the  knowledge  she  has  acquired  ?  Locke's  '  seasons  of 
aptitude  '  are  of  no  practical  value,  I  think.  If  they  exist,  one 
could  not  be  on  the  watch  for  them.  I  have  'lessons'  just 
after  breakfast,  the  only  time  when  I  can  reckon  on  being 
disengaged." 

"  4  Nov.  '86.  Dora  has  considerable  powers  of  narrative. 
To-day  she  told  about  a  storm  in  which  she  had  been  caught. 
In  her  emphatic  way  she  described  the  sky, '  There  wasn't  a 
bit  of  blue  left  and  it  wasn't  white  but  all  dark,  dark,  dark 
sky.'  When  she  had  done  she  said,  'Would  you  like  me  to 
tell  you  that  amusing  story  again  ?  ' 

"  Her  confusions  of  words  are  often  droll :  '  When  you 
shout  and  a  shout  comes  after  you've  done,  isn't  that  tobacco  ?  ' 
(echo).  On  hearing  of  Putney  she  said,  '  Isn't  that  where  the 
stuff  to  mend  the  windows  comes  from?'  Dora,  drawing 
fancy  birds  on  paper,  asks  her  mother  to  guess  what  sort  of 
birds  they  are  meant  for.  Her  mother  (after  several  bad  shots), 
'  Eagles.'  Dora,  '  No,  but  you  were  very  near  that  time.  They 
are  sea  gulls.'  " 

"  ID  Nov.  '86.  13,  Farquhar  Road,  Upper  Norwood. 
Dora's  ideas  are  now  in  process  of  development  by  visits  to  the 


Dora  and  Oliver  329 

Crystal  Palace.  I  wish  to  avoid  exciting  her  and  in  some 
ways  regret  for  her  the  remove  from  Sedbergh,  but  in  Sedbergh 
there  was  the  Schattenseite,  that  all  the  poor  people  made  a 
great  deal  too  much  of  her  and  she  would  have  got  exaggerated 
ideas  of  her  own  importance.  When  we  took  her  out  for  the 
first  time  here  she  was  impressed  by  the  number  of  horses  and 
cabs  and  said  to  her  mother,  'Surely  it  must  be  market-day.' 
Reading  lessons  go  on  as  usual.  She  has  taken  to  writing  of 
her  own  accord  and  she  imitates  the  letters  very  cleverly. 
Her  drawing  power  too  is  coming  on  very  fast." 

"  16  Nov.  '86.  The  affection  of  brother  and  sister  is  a 
lovely  sight.  Dora  is  ready  to  give  up  to  Oliver  whatever  he 
takes  a  fancy  to,  and  Oliver  shows  more  affection  to  '  Dor '  — 
he  pronounces  her  name  so  far  —  than  to  anyone  except  per- 
haps his  mother.  Just  now  Dora  went  out  of  the  room  and 
Oliver  ran  to  the  closed  door  and  would  not  rest  till  I  opened 
it  and  let  him  call.  Dor  !  which  he  did  lustily.  When  Dora 
found  that  he  had  been  distressed  by  her  absence  she  was 
immensely  pleased  and  made  me  tell  her  all  about  it.  She 
soon  repeated  the  experiment,  but  the  old  boy  was  busy  with 
something  else  and  did  not  concern  himself  this  time." 


Dora  Reading 

"  24  Nov.  '86.  I  used  to  say  that  Dora  should  not  learn 
to  read  early,  but  now  before  she  is  four  I  find  myself  teaching 
her.  The  first  years  of  life  are  spent  in  learning  things  and 
words,  and  all  teachers  fasten  instinctively  on  the  words.  Now 
words  are  signs  appealing  to  ear  or  eye,  and  I  don't  know  why 
we  should  not  give  the  visible  sign  to  children  as  well  as  the 
vocal.  So  far  Dora  has  been  much  interested  in  her  lessons. 
I  let  the  words  she  learns,  and  which  I  write  on  a  card  slip, 
increase  very  slowly.  The  number  now  is  60.  I  can  easily 
increase  them  in  the  wake  of  the  poetry  she  learns  with  her 


^^^ 


R.  H.  Onick 


mother.  She  can  now  read  \\\q.  first  lines  of  'What  does  little 
birdie  say?'  Besides  the  words  on  slips  of  cardboard  I  keep 
a  box  of  wooden  letters.  Dora  chooses  a  word  among  her 
cardboard  slips  and  I  give  her  out  the  letters  to  make  it. 
These  she  arranges  for  herself.  In  this  way  the  forms  of  the 
letters  are  quite  familiar  to  her.  She  calls  I  the  stick,  T  the 
crossed  stick,  and  so  on. 

"  At  first  I  would  not  let  her  stand  in  her  chair  when  at 
work,  but  her  restlessness  is  so  great  that  I  find  it  better  to  put 
no  restraint  on  her  movements." 

"27  Nov.  '86.  We  go  through  the  60  slips  with  her,  and 
I  see  if  I  can  '  throw  out '  any ;  that  is  put  on  one  side  any  she 
fails  to  recognise.  This  morning  I  did  not  succeed  in  throw- 
ing out  a  single  one. 

"To-day  I  took  a  book  in  large  type  (Noah's  Ark  in 
Warne's  Little  Playmates)  and  she  and  I  read  together,  i.e. 
I  read  all  he  words  she  did  not  know,  but  when  we  came  to  a 
word  of  the  known  60,  I  only  pointed  to  it  and  she  said  it. 
Sometimes  she  failed  to  recognise  a  word  in  type  {e.g.  day),  I 
then  took  it  from  the  slips,  and  put  the  slip  above  the  printed 
word.     She  knew  it  then. 

"  Arithmetic.  She  can  now  make  in  her  mind  (visualise) 
any  number  up  to  five.  It  is  very  funny  when  I  show  her  :  :  or 
:•:  putting  up  her  hand  before  her  eyes  and  making  the 
number  in  her  mind." 

"  18  Dec.  '86.  My  dear  old  boy  is  very  different  from 
what  his  sister  was  at  the  same  age.  He  is  by  no  means  dull, 
but  he  comes  on  very  slowly  in  speech,  and  though  he  has  got 
to  say  '  Up  Per '  for  '  Uncle  Percy '  and  has  a  good  many 
sounds  with  new  conventional  meanings  he  prefers  signs  to 
words." 

"21  Dec.  ^Zd.  It  is  wonderful  how  the  two  children 
differ  in  character.  Dora,  from  her  infancy,  has  always  got 
into  a  rage  on  hurting  herself  and  has  directed  it  against  any- 
one who  offered  her  sympathy.     The  boy  always  flies  to  some 


Dora  and  Oliver  331 

one  to  be  consoled.  Both  have  violent  tempers.  Dora  as  an 
infant  tried  to  hurt  anyone  she  could  get  at.  I  am  thankful 
to  say  this  way  of  venting  ill-temper  passed  before  she  was  old 
enough  to  do  mischief.  Now  her  temper  is  not  so  violent  and 
it  never  goes  beyond  a  howling  fit,  seldom  so  flir.  The  boy  at 
a  very  early  age  showed  his  passionateness  by  going  down  on 
all  fours  and  bumping  his  forehead  against  the  floor  till  he 
was  taken  up.  He,  too,  has  mended  and  now  does  not  get 
beyond  howling.  Dora  has  always  resented,  or  at  best  barely 
tolerated,  caresses  from  her  mother  or  me.  The  old  boy 
seems  much  more  affectionate.  His  affection  for  his  sister  is 
beautiful,  and  with  him  she  is  far  more  loving  than  with 
anyone  else." 

"31  Jan.  '87.  One  thing  is  brought  home  very  forcibly, 
which  is  this.  There  is  a  vast  difference  between  that  perfect 
connection  of  word  and  symbol  necessary  for  reading  and  the 
knowing  the  connection  as  the  child  knows  it.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  when  we  put  a  child  to  read  words  which  he 
*  knows,'  every  recognition  is  a  distinct  effort.  This  series  of 
efforts  is  tiring,  and  should  not  be  long  continued.  Besides 
this  the  reading  is  of  necessity  staccato.  Dora  says  poetry 
beautifully,  and  she  '  knows '  the  words  of  '  Little  Birdie.' 
If  she  sa\s  the  verse  her  intonation  is  all  one  could  wish, 
but  if  I  give  her  the  verse  to  read,  she  does  read  it  and  it 
becomes  staccato.  So  I  don't  see  at  present  how  sentence 
reading  can  be  taught  before  word  reading  has  been  practised 
to  the  point  of  '  mastery,'  and  this  is  a  long  job. 

"  One  of  the  Inspectors  has  recommended  that  children 
should  be  taught  to  read  backwards  before  they  are  allowed 
to  read  forwards.  This  odd  suggestion  seems  to  me  excel- 
lent. It  supposes  that  the  individual  words  must  me  familiar 
before  the  sentence  can  be  read.  If  we  took  the  child  through 
the  sentence  backwards  till  every  word  was  familiar,  he  might 
then  begin  at  the  beginning  and  read  the  sentence  with  the 
sense  in  it." 


^7,2  R.  H.  Quick 

"22  Feb.  '87.     I  have  often  remarked  that  in  saying  'by 
heart '  one  goes  simply  by  se(|uence  of  sound. 
"  Dora  to-day  said  Lord  Houghton's 

*■  A  fair  little  girl  sat  under  a  tree.'' 

She  said  it  very  prettily,  with  clear  appreciation  of  meaning, 
and  neither  fault  nor  hesitation.  When  she  had  finished  she 
said,  '  I  nearly  know  that  now.'  To  which  her  mother  replied, 
'You  quite  know  it;  you  said  it  very  nicely.'  'Yes,  but  I 
tliinked  a  bit,'  said  Dora. 

"Another  poem,  Wordsworth's  'The  cock  is  crowing,'  she 
gabbled,  and  when  her  mother  objected  she  seemed  hurt,  and 
said,  '  I  knew  it  so  dreadfully  perfect ! '  " 

"4  April,  '87.  Though  only  one  year  nine  months  old, 
Oliver  goes  through  the  Sicilian  Mariners'  hymn-tune  perfectly 
from  beginning  to  end,  and  '  conducts  '  with  a  stick  all  the 
time.  It  is  the  first  case  I  have  heard  in  which  a  child  can 
sing,  or  at  least  hum,  a  tune  before  learning  to  talk.  The 
music  of  the  Crystal  Palace  has  made  a  great  impression  on 
him,  and  especially  the  part  of  the  'dum-man'  (drummer)  and 
of  the  conductor. 

"  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  of  the  power  of  these 
early  impressions,  and  also  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  avoiding 
wrong  and  injurious  impressions.  As  children  are  not  guided 
by  the  considerations  that  weigh  with  us,  we  are  tempted  to 
invent  irrational  ways  of  dealing  with  them.  They  are  ex- 
tronely  trying,  and  grown-up  people  think  of  the  minute's 
peace  and  quietness,  and  give  the  child  what  it  cries  for  or 
deliberately  humbug  him.  The  fearful  want  of  truthfulness 
which  we  find  in  so  many  children  may  come  from  the  way 
in  which  they  themselves  have  been  deceived  from  infancy. 
We  cannot  be  too  careful  in  convincing  children  that  they 
may  depend  entirely  on  what  we  say  to  them.  E\en  as  a 
matter  of  convenience  it  pays  in  the  end. 

"  This   morning   my   boy   wanted    to    take    a    large    ivory 


Dora  and  Oliver  333 

paper-knife  down  stairs.  I  was  afraid  he  might  tumble  over 
it,  and  said,  '  Give  it  me  and  I  will  give  it  you  at  the  bottom.' 
The  old  boy  knew  he  was  safe  to  get  it,  and  yielded  it  without 
hesitation." 

"  19  Apr.  '87.  Oliver  is  getting  to  understand  a  great 
deal,  and  he  makes  great  efforts  to  talk.  He  says,  'One, 
two,'  and  understands  the  meaning  of  the  words.  The  other 
day,  when  there  were  three  things,  he  tried  to  express  the 
additional  one  by  repeating  the  *  two '  with  emphasis,  '  One, 
two,  two  /  '  " 

"  23  April,  '87.  I  have  to-day  given  Dora  her  first  writing 
lesson.  There  are  several  difficulties  to  be  encountered.  In 
order  to  put  a  form  on  paper  one  must  have  a  conception  of 
it  in  the  mind.  Children  have  apparently  somewhat  vague 
conceptions  of  the  forms  they  try  to  draw,  and  often  the 
error  in  the  drawing  comes  of  imperfect  conception  of  the 
form,  not  from  the  mechanical  difficulty  of  representing  it. 
So  before  the  child  can  attempt  to  draw  a  letter  he  must 
have  a  conception  of  the  letter.  This  is  my  reason  for 
teaching  at  first  Roman  characters  rather  than  script.  Dora 
is  familiar  with  the  look  of  her  own  name,  so  I  began  with 
Dora  in  letters  about  half  an  inch  in  height.  Then  comes 
the  difficulty  about  holding  the  pencil  and  the  position  of 
the  body,  and  still  more  of  the  head.  These  points  are 
neglected  in  teaching  the  '  infants.'  Indeed,  one  often  sees 
the  infants  in  the  gallery  with  slates  clutched  in  the  left 
arm  and  with  a  scrap  of  slate  pencil  in  the  right  hand.  In 
such  conditions  a  skilful  writer  would  have  some  difficulty 
in  writing  well  ;  and,  though  the  children  do  get  to  write  in 
this  way,  they  acquire  thoroughly  bad  habits  from  the  first. 
I  had  some  difficulty  about  the  hand,  and  had  still  more 
difficulty  in  keeping  the  head  up.  Then  comes,  as  in  every- 
thing, the  question,  should  we  analyse  and  give  the  elements, 
pothooks,  hangers,  &c.,  or  should  we  at  first  give  the  first 
word    and   analyse    afterwards  ?     The  second    method    seems 


334  R.  H.  Quick 

most  calculated  to  keep  the  child's  interest  and  therefore 
attention,  and  this  is  more  than  compensation  for  some 
clumsiness  in  procedure.  To-day  I  tried  the  plan  of  putting 
dots  and  here  and  there  a  curve  with  coloured  pencil.  Dora 
was  more  successful  than  I  expected  in  guiding  herself  by 
these,  and  we  accomplished  '  Dora  and  Oliver.' " 


Dora's  Lessons 

"  ID  ATay,  '87.  What  strikes  me  most  is  the  very  slow 
growth  of  the  power  of  putting  notions  together.  Dora  is 
now  over  4I-  and  a  very  bright,  intelligent  child,  but  she  has 
difficulty  that  one  would  not  expect  about  very  simple  opera- 
tions :  e.g.  she  knows  '  at.'  I  say  '  What  would  "  at "  be  if 
you  put  a  hissing  before  it?'  After  a  little  floun<1ering  this 
is  arrived  at.  I'hcn  I  say  ''Put  "p"  (I  pronounce  pur)  before 
it.'     Dora, '  fat.'     '  No.'     Dora,    that,'  and  so  on." 

"  19  May,  '87.  The  driver  of  a  sound  horse,  when  the 
road  is  good  and  level  and  the  carriage  light,  expects  him 
to  trot,  and  if  the  horse  won't,  he  treats  this  as  laziness  or 
obstinacy,  and  flogs  him  till  he  does.  Teachers  proceed  in 
the  same  way  with  their  pupils.  They  require  from  the 
pupil  a  particular  action  of  the  mind,  and  if  that  action 
seems  to  them  within  the  pupil's  power,  and  the  pupil  does 
not  respond  when  called  upon,  they  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  pupil  is  lazy  or  obstinate,  and  in  some  form  or  other 
they  lay  on  the  lash.  But  in  teaching  my  little  daughter  I 
see  that  the  mind  is  like  Babbage's  machine,  which  occa- 
sionally played  an  unexpected  freak  and  didn't  act  or  acted 
wrongly.  To-day,  after  working  hint  hien  que  iiial  at  the  Jat, 
mat,  rat  series,  I  wrote  down  at,  one  of  her  most  familiar 
>yords,  and  she  totally  failed  to  recognise  it.     Now  a  similar 


Dora  and  Oliver  335 

failure  has  often  brought  down  a  swingeing  punishment  even 
from  a  pretty  easy-going  teacher.  And  when  a  boy  once 
gets  frightened,  his  mind  naturally  refuses  to  act.  You  don't 
get  him  to  think  by  threat  of  punishment ;  you  may  as  well 
try  to  hurry  a  snail  by  pricking  it  with  a  pin.  But  Dora 
was  not  in  the  least  alarmed,  and  she  was  not  sulky  or 
lazy :  simply  her  mind  refused  to  act.  Perhaps  it  is  the 
same  with  adult  minds  too.  From  some  unknown  cause 
(probably  our  physical  state)  we  may  be  at  one  time  quite 
unable  to  make  an  effort  of  mind  that  at  most  times  would 
be  quite  easy.  This  is  certainly  so  with  the  young,  yet  very 
few  teachers  make  allowance  for  such  suspended  action,  and 
with  a  form  teacher  it  is  very  difficult  to  do  so. 


Dora 

"15  July,  '87.  In  teaching  my  dear  little  girl  the  ele- 
ments, I  am  learning  the  elements  of  teaching.  One  of  the 
first  things  which  a  teacher  should  learn  is  the  amount  of 
time  and  practice  needed  to  incorporate  even  the  simplest 
conceptions  in  the  mind.  In  class  teaching  one  easily  makes 
the  mistake  of  attributing  the  collective  knowledge  of  the 
class  to  the  average  child  in  it.  But  when  one  watches  the 
individual  child  one  finds  the  slowness  of  appropriation  quite 
bewildering.  I  have  kept  Dora  to  a  small  area  that  she 
might  get  to  know  the  symbols  for  a  few  words  thoroughly  ; 
but  after  all  this  time  (over  a  year)  there  are  hardly  a  dozen 
words  which  she  recognises  without  effort ;  and  if  she  is  not 
disposed  to  effort,  she  fails  with  what  ought  to  be  quite 
familiar.  This  reached  a  climax  to-day,  when  she  stuck  at 
a,  though  if  I  had  asked  her  to  write  a  she  would  have 
done  it." 


336  R.  H.  Qicick 


Dora  and  Oliver 

"28  July,  '87.  When  grown  people  give  way  to  bad 
temper,  or  in  any  way  deliberately  misconduct  themselves, 
they  think  it  necessary  to  invent  some  kind  of  excuse  for 
themselves  and  to  themselves ;  but  children  have  not  this 
necessity.  They  go  in  for  being  naughty  and  calmly  admit 
it.  Our  two  children,  much  as  they  differ  in  most  things, 
agree  not  only  in  being  at  times  deliberately  naughty,  but 
also  in  never  feeling  ashamed  of  themselves  afterwards.  They 
mostly  are  very  affectionate  to  each  other,  but  two  days  ago 
Oliver,  in  one  of  his  bad  tempers,  tried  to  bite  Dora,  and 
yesterday  he  boasted  to  his  mother  about  it  and  seemed  to 
think  it  a  joke." 

Dora 

"  20  Aug.  '87.  Dora  composing  as  a  printer  is  capital  fun. 
To-day,  when  I  said  I  should  soon  be  ready  for  lessons,  Dora 
said  'Shall  I  print?'  /.  'Yes.'  D.  '  What  fun  !  I  don't  call 
it  lessons ;  it's  like  play.'  I  wonder  where  the  child  got  her 
notion  of  the  distinction  between  *  lessons '  and  '  play.'  I 
have  been  very  careful  to  keep  all  sorts  of  unpleasant  asso- 
ciations away  from  the  *  lessons.'  To-day  Dora  composed, 
'  Dora  is  my  little  printer.'  We  then  had  finger  counting. 
I  hold  up  a  fingers  on  the  right  hand  and  d  on  the  left ; 
and  then,  both  being  counted  separately,  I  put  them  to- 
gether for  the  sum.  Dora  also  counts  backwards  pretty  fast 
from  ten.  I  then  told  her  I  had  a  book  (Miss  W^oods's  Seco?id 
School  Poetry  Book)  I  was  going  to  read  to  her  from.  I  read 
her  part  of  Tennyson's  '  Brook,'  which  she  made  me  read 
over  and  over  again,  and  also  Wordsworth's  '  O  blithe  new 
comer,'  which  she  asked  for,  as  I  had  read  it  when  the  book 


Dora  and  Oliver  337 

came  in  the  other  day.  These  pleased  her  immensely.  I 
explain  some  things  and  words  as  I  go  along,  but  by  no 
means  all  at  first." 

"22  Aug.  '87.  What  a  wide  opening  there  is  for  skill  in 
teaching,  even  in  its  sunplest  conditions  !  In  teaching  Dora 
I  find  more  openings  than  I  can  avail  myself  of.  To-day  I 
tried  the  experiment  of  asking  Dora,  '  If  you  had  ten  letters 
and  you  gave  me  half  of  them,  how  many  would  you  have 
left?'  Of  course  she  didn't  know,  so  I  gave  her  ten  letters, 
and  she  went  to  work  to  divide  them  into  two  equal  lots. 
She  first  got  six  and  four ;  then  seeing  this  was  wrong,  she 
took  two  from  the  six  ;  then  settled  that  four  would  be  the 
half  of  eight,  and  finally  solved  the  problem.  She  was  much 
interested  to  learn  that  if  she  put  together  two  odd  numbers 
she  v/ould  get  an  even,  and  verified  the  fact  for  herself.  She 
gave  all  her  attention  to  this,  as  she  had  to  the  printing,  but 
when  I  followed  on  to  some  reading  in  the  Golden  Primer, 
she  failed  to  recognise  well-known  words,  such  as  '  not.'  Now 
here  was  a  case  hkely  to  irritate  the  teacher  and  turn  him 
into  a  driver;  but  I  knew  that  the  little  brain  was  getting 
tired,  so  said,  '  I'll  read  a  bit  to  you,'  and  so  we  read  on 
swimmingly,  I  pausing  for  her  to  fill  in  words  that  she  knew. 
These  changes  in  procedure  are  very  valuable  in  teaching. 
In  cricket  a  change  bowler,  though  not  so  good  as  the  man 
he  supersedes,  often  takes  a  wicket  that  the  other  failed  to 
get." 

"  I  Sept.  '87.  She  does  not  take  very  kindly  as  yet  to 
adding.  To-day  I  showed  her  the  double  four  domino  ;  she 
said  at  once  '  Four,  four.'  'What  does  that  make?'  'Five.' 
'  Count,'  I  said.  She  did,  and  got  the  right  number.  '  I 
know,'  she  said,  '  but  it's  such  a  trouble.' 

"  When  I  afterwards  said  some  poetry  to  her  she  was 
interested  as  usual,  and  when  I  repeated  the  first  two  verses 
of  'The  splendour  falls  on  castle  walls,'  the  'dying,  dying, 
dying,'  was  too  much  for  the  child,  and  her  eyes  filled  with 


338  R.  //.   Quick 

tears.     She  was  ashamed  of  her  weakness,  and  tried  to  make 
out  it  was  from  'staring.'  " 

"2  Sept.  '87.  I  have  now  been  over  a  year  (with  many 
interruptions)  giving  Dora  lessons.  The  results,  as  the  Code 
counts  *  results,'  are  poor  indeed,  but  I  am  satisfied.  '  Re- 
sults '  in  the  Code  sense  I  never  think  of.  So  in  teaching 
to  read  I  try  to  get  Dora  to  recognise  each  new  word.  '  Can 
you  get  me  to  know  it?'  asks  Dora,  and  I  answer,  'I'll  try.' 
Say  the  word  is  'gets.'  I  take  a  sheet  of  paper  and  write 
*  let.'  This  Dora  knows,  and  I  then  make  her  decide  on 
'  et '  and  then  '  get,'  and  lastly  '  gets.'  This  of  course  is  an 
easy  example.  The  process  is  a  very  slow  one,  and  I  should 
probably  find  if  I  were  teaching  in  class  that  I  could  not 
carry  on  my  pupils  all  together.  I  don't  wonder  at  the 
mechanical  teaching  that  is  the  ordinary  practice  when  I 
find  what  a  demand  on  one's  patience  a  single  good  child 
makes.  One  is  constantly  surprised  at  unexpected  failures. 
The  restlessness  of  children  is  intense.  If  my  attention  goes 
for  an  instant  to  a  word  or  so  I  am  writing  for  her,  Dora  has 
got  hold  of  something  —  to-day  a  carefully  sorted  pile  of  my 
MS.  which  she  made  hay  of." 

Dora's  Arithmetic 

"  10  Sept.  '87.  For  notation  would  it  not  be  better  to 
start  with  'nought?  The  whole  thing  would  then  become 
symmetrical.  Nought,  nought  i,  nought  2  ...  nought  9;  ten, 
ten  I,  ten  2  . . .  ten  9,  twenty,  &c.  I  am  much  inclined  to 
teach  Dora  on  this  plan  and  make  her  count  thus  for  the 
present.  Our  awkward  nomenclature  between  10  and  20 
spoils  the  perception  of  the  decimal  system." 

"17  Sept.  '87.  I  find  the  last  experiment  in  naming 
numbers  very  successful,  so  much  so  that  Dora  from  one 
lesson  could  tell  any  number  up  to  99.  She  calls  1 1  ten 
one,  12  ten    two,  (S:c.     The  whole    nomenclature  is  thus  un- 


Dora  and  Oliver  339 

derstood,  for  she  understood  at  once  that  20  was  two  tens,  30 
three  tens,  &c." 

"  10  Sept.  '87.  Our  system  of  separate  words  on  cards 
did  not  lead  beyond  itself  quite  so  fast  as  I  expected.  It 
requires  more  analytical  power  than  the  child  possesses. 
We  have  somewhat  drifted  away  from  it  to  Meiklejohn  and 
Crane's  Golden  Primer  (a  capital  book),  which  works  on  the 
*c-at,  m-at,  f-at '  principle,  but  gives  junction  words  (of,  and, 
the)  independently  of  it.  I  should  think  a  regular  drill  in 
the  ad,  ed,  id,  od,  ud  would  be  the  most  rapid  way,  //  the 
child  was  not  bored  by  it,  but  is  not  that  a  fatal  objection  ?  " 

"27  Sept.  '87.  The  reading  gets  on  slowly  but  very 
surely,  I  think.  No  doubt  the  imperfections  of  our  nota- 
tion are  many  and  great,  but  this  gives  an  opening  for 
the  teacher's  art.  The  grand  thing  is  to  teach  the  normal 
thoroughly  first  and  then  to  point  out  deviations,  all  danger 
of  confusion  being  stopped  by  thorough  familiarity  with  the 
normal.  To-day  Dora  was  interested  by  my  pointing  out 
some  anomalies.  First  I  got  her  to  see  that  we  might  give 
a  vowel  a  long  or  short  sound.  I  took  bit,  sit,  spit,  and 
showed  her  that  we  sometimes  put  an  e  at  the  end,  just  to 
make  the  inside  vowel  long,  bite,  site,  spite.  I  then  remarked 
that  we  had  a  lot  of  trouble  with  a  because  it  had  so  many 
sounds,  as  I  proved  by  words  she  knew,  at,  are,  what.  In 
the  reading  we  had  '  half-past  two  o'clock.'  '  Clock '  we 
had  already  got  at  by  oc,  ock  (I  pointed  out  that  c  and  k 
had  the  same  sound).  The  rest  came  out  '  ha/f  pazt,'  but 
when  she  read  the  whole  sentence  she  saw  at  once  what 
was  the  usual  pronunciation,  and  laughed  at  her  previous 
mispronunciation." 

"  30  Sept.  '87.  '  Naughtiness  '  is  a  fact  in  the  lives  of 
children  of  which  they  themselves  are  thoroughly  conscious, 
Dora  makes  great  efforts  to  get  over  her  naughtiness,  and 
when  she  is  judiciously  treated,  as  she  is  by  her  mother,  she 
very  soon  comes  round.     The  great  thing  is  to  give  children 


340  R.  H.  Quick 

time  to  recover.  Very  often  their  elders  worry  them  to  do 
or  say  this  or  that,  and  raise  opposition  which  would  be 
entirely  avoided  if  the  bad  temper  were  allowed  to  subside. 
Dora  wishes  to  be  good.  When  she  was  unwell  the  other 
evening,  and  had  been  put  to  bed  without  saying  her  prayers, 
she  told  me  she  had  not  said  them,  and  asked  me  to  '  kneel 
down  and  pray  God  to  make  me  good.'  " 

"ii  Oct.  '87.  Children  are  full  of  pent-up  energy,  and 
this  energy  oozes  almost  constantly  through  the  fingers. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  keep  Dora's  hands  quiet.  One  minute 
she  has  pulled  open  a  drawer  and  is  ransacking  the  (to 
her)  not  very  interesting  contents.  The  next  she  has  got 
hold  of  my  pencil  and  broken  the  point  ;  next  she  has 
seized  on  a  book  I  was  reading  and  extracted  the  marker. 
In  all  this  there  is  not  the  smallest  intention  to  do  mischief, 
but  simply  an  effort  to  justify  the  instinct  to  do  something. 
Strange  that  this  instinct  has  been  so  persistently  neglected  by 
the  teacher  ! 

"  There  is  a  striking  passage  in  Emerson's  essay  on  Educa- 
tion where  he  compares  the  patience  with  which  the  naturalist 
waits  and  watches  with  the  impatience  of  those  who  have  to 
do  with  children.  Milton  speaks  of  haling  and  dragging  our 
choicest  wits  to  an  asinine  feast  of  sow-thistles  and  brambles. 
This  language  was  not  too  strong  then,  and,  I  am  afraid,  would 
often  not  be  too  strong  now.  But  is  there  then  to  be  no 
haling  and  dragging  of  the  young?  If  the  young  don't  want 
to  come  our  way,  are  they  to  choose  their  own?  I  have  a 
difficulty  with  Dora  even  in  the  short  lessons  that  I  give  her, 
only  an  hour  after  breakfast.  ^Vriting  she  likes,  reading  she 
tolerates,  but  she  is  bored  by  anything  to  do  with  numbers. 
Should  I  drop  the  counting  altogether?" 

Dora 

"  15  Oct.  '87.  I  have  had  a  good  proof  to-day  of  the 
value  of  giving  a  child  something  to  do.     Dora  has  not  been 


Dora  and  Oliver  ^  341 

in  good  form  lately  about  her  lessons,  and  to-day  at  breakfast 
she  had  one  of  her  queer  attacks  of  general  ill-temper.  No 
doubt  grown  people  are  subject  to  like  attacks,  but  they 
suppress  them  or  invent  some  pretext  to  excuse  them.  But 
the  child  does  not  see  any  necessity  for  this,  and  to  use 
Mrs  Poyser's  simile,  it  is  like  a  clock  that  strikes  not  to 
show  the  time,  but  because  there  is  something  wrong  in  its 
inside.  Dora  was  intolerable  at  breakfast,  and  I  dreaded  the 
prospect  of  lessons.  However,  I  thought  I  would  try,  and 
instead  of  the  ordinary  routine  I  set  her  to  work  at  her 
printing.  She  quickly  recovered  her  temper,  and  all  went 
smoothly." 

"28  Oct.  '87.  I  have  not  lost  faith  in  the  'method  of 
investigation  '  as  the  true  method  for  intellectual  training,  but 
1  quite  despair  of  its  ever  being  adopted  by  the  ordinary 
teacher.  It  seems  so  fearfully  slow.  I  have  worked  at  Dora's 
reading  with  great  advantages,  but  at  present  I  have  not  had 
any  rewarding  success.  That  the  children  have  remarkable 
memories  is  shown  by  the  way  in  which  both  of  them  re- 
member the  names  of  animals  and  birds  pointed  out  to 
them  in  their  picture  books.  But  Dora  has  never  shown 
any  remarkable  memory  with  the  signs  for  words.  I  began 
with  words  written  on  cards,  and  hoped  to  analyse  these 
when  they  were  well  known.  But  the  foundation  seems  laid 
in  quicksand.  Dora  never  seems  to  recognise  any  word 
easily.  To-day  she  failed  with  'not.'  Da  hort  alles  auf! 
as  the  Germans  say.  I  thought,  too,  we  had  reached  the 
stage  when  she  would  be  able  to  recognise  words,  not  as 
the  symbols  of  things,  but  the  symbols  of  sounds.  To-day 
I  tried,  but  the  failure  was  deplorable.  In  '  better '  I  got 
'  bet,'  but  failed  utterly  with  '  ter.' 

"  No  doubt  the  ordinary  teaching,  which  one  may  call 
'the  method  of  the  crib'  (the  teacher  acting  as  a  crib  di- 
rectly the  pupil  sticks),  will  continue  to  be  the  ordinary 
method  so  long  as  human  patience  retains  its  present  limits. 


342  R.  H.  Qnick 

And  yet  it's  a  pity.  We  want  the  young  to  use  their  wits 
and  become  able  to  find  their  own  way,  not  to  drag  them 
along  as  if  they  were  born  blind  like  kittens. '  " 

"  I  Feb.  '?>?>.  Dora  was  five  years  old  to-day.  She  is 
fancifiil  and  capricious,  and  has  never  shown  a  child-like  re- 
spect for  the  superior  knowledge  of  her  teacher.  Anything 
that  she  can  do,  and  do  by  herself,  she  takes  an  interest  in. 
Like  Oliver,  she  resents  being  helped.  She  is  clever  with 
her  hands,  and  her  writing  is  quite  remarkable.  She  has  just 
written  '  Dora  is  five  to-day.  This  is  Dora's  birth-day '  so 
well  on  the  blackboard  that  any  one  coming  in  would  have 
supposed  it  to  be  the  writing  of  a  grown-up  person.  But 
with  her  reading  she  comes  on  very  slowly.  Her  poetry  she 
remembers,  though  she  does  not  now  care  to  hear  it  or  to 
hear  anything  new.  She  still  keeps  up  her  love  of  '  pre- 
tending.' Yesterday  we  started  on  a  new  game  which  worked 
very  well.  She  was  a  girl  teacher  and  I  was  a  little  boy. 
She  held  up  fingers  and  asked  me  '  How  many  ? '  She  was 
very  much  pleased  when  I  said  wrong,  and  she  corrected  me 
promptly.  She  also  wrote  on  the  blackboard  words  for  me 
to  read.  She  afterwards  told  me  the  story  of  '  Puss  in  Boots.' 
She  has  only  heard  it  once,  and  her  reproduction  of  it  was 
wonderfully  good.  Much  might  have  been  published  as  it 
stood  if  I  had  taken  it  down  in  shorthand." 

"  28  Feb.  '88.  The  great  mistake  in  teaching  children 
generally  comes  from  the  notion  that  the  mind  is  strengthened 
by  trying  to  do  something  that  it  cannot  do  easily.  Grown 
people  find  they  can't  make  progress  without  effort ;  they 
therefore  wish  to  get  effort  from  children.  This  they  do  by 
trying  to  force  children  to  do  what  the  children  find  distasteful. 
1  don't  say  that  children  should  never  have  to  do  what  is  dis- 
tasteful, but  I  do  say  that  the   mind  of  children  cannot  be 

^  [*  Before  teaching  a  child  to  read  we  should  teach  him  to  see.' 
Rousseau.] 


Dora  and  Oliver  343 

exercised  on  what  is  distasteful.  When  the  task  is  distasteful 
to  the  child  the  teacher  enforces  nothing  but  mechanical 
action,  either  of  voice  or  hand,  which  may  produce  mechanical 
aptitude,  but  certainly  does  not  exercise  the  mind.  The 
commonest  cause  of  the  task's  being  distasteful  is  that  it  is  just 
beyond  their  power.  Later  on,  the  task  may  be  distasteful, 
because  it  is  too  easy,  but  this  is  not  likely  to  happen  with 
the  very  young.  When  the  child  shows  no  eagerness  and 
his  attention  runs  away  from  what  the  teacher  proposes  to  him, 
the  teacher  should  always  carefully  consider  why  this  is. 
There  was  a  stage  when  Dora  '  did  not  like '  her  lessons,  but 
this  has  long  passed  away.  Dora  thinks  we  have  more  *  larks ' 
than  lessons,  and  I  certainly  take  pains  to  keep  her  amused. 
We  grown  people,  elderly  people  especially,  don't  feel  inclined 
to  take  as  much  bodily  exercise  as  is  good  for  us ;  but  it  seems 
provided  that  little  bodies  should  get  plenty  of  exercise,  and 
without  taking  constitutionals  they  are  on  the  go  all  day  long. 
Probably  in  the  young  activity  of  mind  is  provided  for  no  less 
than  acti\  ity  of  body.  The  teacher  has  to  guide  the  activity 
and  cannot  do  this  by  force." 

"  20  March,  ^^^.  Dora  is  now  greatly  delighted  with  'map- 
geography.'  I  have  a  big  wall  map  of  Europe.  This  I  put  on 
the  floor  and  orient  accurately  with  a  compass.  Dora  then 
asks  questions  about  the  countries,  rivers,  &c.  She  remembers 
a  great  deal  that  I  tell  her.  She  is  interested  in  any  country 
that  she  can  connect  with  anything  in  her  life.  Italy,  e.g. 
(though  she  resents  'the  boot'),  becomes  interesting  for  her 
from  the  Italian  organ-grinders  who  come  and  say  *  Grazie 
signorina,'  when  she  gives  them  coppers.  The  art  of  teaching 
informative  subjects  is  simply  the  art  of  making  pleasing 
associations.  '  To  them  that  have  shall  more  be  given  '  is  the 
law  in  the  kingdom  of  knowledge.  To-day  Dora  asked  what 
the  word  '  Lapland '  was  on  the  map.  I  did  not  much  want  to 
tell  her,  as  I  thought  it  would  be  a  mere  name,  but  as  she 
asked  I  said  '  Lapland.'     '  Oh,'  said   Dora,  '  we  have  a  Lap- 


344  ^-  H.  Quick 

land  bunting  in  the  bird  book.  Do  you  know  they  put  in 
birds,  if  they  have  been  only  seen  in  England  once  or  twice  ? ' 
And  then  she  found  on  the  map  which  way  the  bird  would 
have  had  to  fly  to  get  to  England." 

"  4  April,  '88.  We  hear  a  good  deal  about  the  tenacity  of 
children's  memory.  I  should  like  to  have  more  definite  facts 
than  I  can  find  in  any  books  on  pedagogy.  I  myself  remember 
a  great  deal  that  happened  before  I  was  five,  things  that  I  can 
never  have  heard  of  from  others.  Dora's  memory  is  strangely 
capricious.  She  remembers  the  names  of  all  sorts  of  queer 
geese  in  the  book  of  ornithology.  Per  contra,  she  could  not 
remember  ever  having  heard  '  White  sand  and  grey  sand,' 
though  for  a  long  time  she  was  very  fond  of  the  round. 
Hastings,  where  we  were  for  six  weeks  two  years  ago,  has  quite 
passed  from  her  mind,  sea,  boats  and  all." 

"  9  April,  '88.  Her  notions  of  numbers  are  gradually 
forming,  but  very  slowly.  She  can  add  two  pretty  easily,  but 
subtract  two  she  cannot.  I  am  convinced  that  number  notions 
are  formed  far  more  slowly  than  teachers  suppose,  and  the 
ordinary  gabble  of  words  prevents  them  from  seeing  this." 

"  14  April,  '88.  W.  H.  Payne  maintains  that  Rousseau  is 
wrong  in  making  children's  powers  and  children's  likes  and 
tendencies  differ  so  widely  from  those  of  grown  people. 
According  to  him  the  difference  is  more  in  degree  than  in  kind. 
But  I  am  struck  more  and  more  with  the  difference  in  kind. 
No  one  but  those  who  associate  closely  with  children  would 
beheve  what  an  immense  amount  of  their  lives  is  spent  in 
dramatising.  Dora  has  gone  on  for  months  every  morning  as 
the  printer's  boy  '  George '  or  as  she  sometimes  says  *  George 
Albert  Dodge.'  The  other  day  when  printing  she  said  in  a 
bold  voice,  *  Printing  is  a  nuisance.  Sir  ; '  I  was  somewhat  vexed 
and  said,  '/don't  think  it  a  nuisance.'  Whereupon  Dora  said 
in  her  sweet  childish  treble,  quite  different  from  the  other 
voice,  'Father,  shall  I  tell  you  why  I  said  that?  It  was  only 
for  something  to  say.     I  did  not  really  meant  it.'  " 


Dora  and  Oliver  345 

"18  Aug.  '88.  Dora  by  'composing'  with  her  25  bowls 
of  letters  is  getting  to  spell  many  words  nicely,  tho'  I  don't  give 
her  reading  lessons  now.  She  is  getting  to  interpret  sounds 
as  indicated  by  letters,  and  the  plan  on  which  I  started  her 
has  been  abandoned.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  our  spelling 
is  uniform  enough  to  establish  a  regular  system,  and  then 
variations  from  it  must  be  noted.  We  every  day  *  compose  ' 
the  day  of  the  week  and  month.  To-day  '  eighteen  '  presented 
difficulties.  I  told  Dora  that  the  Germans  call  '  eight '  acht 
and  that  we  used  to  pronounce  the  word  with  a  guttural. 

"  We  afterwards  went  to  numbers.  Dora  is  now  very  clever 
in  counting  backwards  1-2  ;  1-3-2-1 ;  up  to  20.  She  also  gives 
the  odd  and  even  upwards  and  downwards  very  well.  I 
afterwards  let  her  count  in  actual  money,  gold,  silver  and 
copper.  She  is  very  fond  of  this  and  knows  all  the  coins. 
*  To  seek  the  useful  in  everything,'  says  Plato,  '  is  unworthy  of 
a  freeman.'  I  should  alter  this  into  '  to  think  fi^st  of  the 
useful,  &c.'  But  the  concrete  involves  the  abstract  and  the 
abstract  must  be  evolved  from  it.  Dora  gets  to  know  about 
money.  This  may  be  '  useful ' ;  so  much  the  better,  say  I ; 
but  that  is  not  what  I  go  for.  Through  this  counting  of  money 
she  learns  a  great  deal  about  numbers,  and  I  hope  to  evolve 
many  truths  from  the  coin  counting." 

Oliver's  First  Lessons 

"19  Oct.  ^'iZ.  For  the  last  live  days  Oliver,  whose  three 
years  and  four  months  is  nearly  completed,  has  had  lessons. 
His  eagerness  is  delightful.  I  have  begun  with  writing  and  he 
has  gone  over  with  a  lead  pencil  his  own  name  '  Oliver,'  written 
in  red.  He  is  beginning  to  get  a  little  command  of  his  pencil 
already. 

"  In  numbers  I  find  he  is  quite  safe  up  to  hvo,  but  has  no 
notion  of  anything  beyond,  though  he  is  supposed  to  count  up 
to  five.     When  I  show  him  three  counters,  he  can't   tell  how 


346  R.  H.   Quick 

many,  nor  can  he  count  them.     He  is  a  thoughtful  boy  and 
has  all  his  wits  about  him." 

Dora 

"19  Dec.  ^Z^.  Dora,  though  generally  a  good  girl,  has 
fits  of  a  defiant  mood.  To-day  at  dinner  she  took  a  great 
quantity  of  salt,  which  she  had  been  told  not  to  do.  Her 
mother  told  her  not  to  take  so  much.  Dora.  '  You  took  a  lot 
just  now.'  To  this  her  mother  made  no  reply.  Dora.  '  Why 
don't  you  say  Never  mind  what  I  do,  you  do  what  you're  told? 
That's  what  I  expected  you  to  say.'  " 

"27  Dec.  '88.  My  attempt  to  teach  Dora  without  coercion 
is  at  the  present  stage  (she  is  five  weeks  short  of  six)  a  deplor- 
able failure.  I  have  done  everything  I  could  think  of  to  make 
her  lessons  of  about  45  minutes  a  day  pleasant  to  her.  This 
has  to  all  appearances  succeeded  till  quite  lately,  but  now  she 
has  taken  a  notion  into  her  head  that  she  '  doesn't  like  lessons,' 
and  she  sets  herself  deliberately  to  resist  and  give  all  the 
trouble  she  can.  Her  writing,  of  which  she  is  proud,  she 
does  —  writing  poetry  she  knows  by  heart;  but  she  soon  breaks 
down  and  never  tries  to  do  her  best.  Then  she  takes  to 
gymnastics,  as  she  calls  it,  that  is  she  wriggles  and  twists  about 
and  refuses  to  attend  to  anything.  When  I  tell  her  to  do  and 
say  anything  she  purposely  takes  what  I  say  in  a  wrong  sense 
and  endeavours  to  annoy  me  by  doing  or  saying  the  wrong 
thing. 

"  This  extremely  unamiable  mood  produces  the  worst  results 
all  round.  Of  course  it  is  impossible  to  teach  the  child,  and  I 
must  send  her  away,  which  is  just  what  pleases  her,  or  I  must 
insist  on  some  perfunctory  work.  We  seem  to  have  arrived  at 
an  impasse.     I  trust  that  a  way  out  of  it  will  be  shown  me." 

"  29  May,  '89.  Dora  is  now  getting  very  clear  notions  of 
numbers,  counting  always  by  tens  and  not  using  eleven,  twelve, 
&c.     She  also   thoroughly  understands  fractions,  but  not  the 


Dora  and  Oliver  347 

truth  that  -  =  — .     I  keep  this  out  of  sight  at  present.     She 
b      nib 

draws  squares  and  circles  and  understands  about  angles.     She 

had  a  httle  difficulty  in  getting  the  notion  of  an  angle,  but  at 

length  made  out  for  herself  that  the  length  of  the  sides  did 

not  affect  the  size  of  the  angle.     By  the  way,  our  nomenclature 

'  triangle  '  '  rectangle,'  is  very  confusing." 

"27  Dec.  '89.     Dora  (now  within  six  weeks  of  seven)  told 

me  to-day  that  she  used  to  be  puzzled  by  the  hne 

'And  thinner,  clearer,  farther  going,' 

as  she  took  farther  for  father.     '  Now,'  she  said,  '  I've  made  it 
out ;  it  means  '  further.' ' 

"  She  has  come  across  the  philosophical  difficulty  about 
phenomena,  and  asked  her  mother,  '  How  do  we  know  that  we 
see  things  alike?  How  do  I  know  that  if  a  rose  looks  red  to 
me  and  the  leaves  green,  it  looks  the  same  to  you?'  " 

Dora  and  Oliver,  Arithniefic 

"  21  March,  '90.  To-day  Oliver  (four  years  seven  months) 
asked  me  what  I  could  not  tell  him.  '  Father,  how  many 
thirds  make  a  half?  '  My  boy  is  very  intelligent  in  his  counting 
(for  which  I  use  counters  or  money),  but  I  should  say  not  at 
all  abnormally  intelligent,  and  I  am  extremely  careful  not  to 
stimulate  thought.  So  I  told  him  I  could  not  tell  him  yet. 
Then  I  had  a  talk  with  Dora  (seven  years  one  month )  and  told 
her  Oliver's  difficulty.  This  made  her  eager  to  find  out ;  so 
we  got  a  sheet  of  paper,  crossed  it  exactly  down  the  middle, 
and  then  in  thirds.  Dora  now  saw  that  the  half  was  made  up 
of  a  third  and  half  of  a  third.  With  her  compasses  she  then 
measured  the  half  of  a  third  and  found  it  was  a  sixth.  She 
discovered  further  that  the  third  was  made  up  of  two-sixths. 
This  brought  her  to  the  fact  that  a  half  was  three  sixths.  I  told 
her  nothing.     It  may  seem  odd  that  a  child  of  seven  can  learn 


34S  R.  H.  Quick 

in  this  way,  and  still  odder  that  a  man  of  nearly  60  can.  But 
it  is  a  simple  fact  that  I  had  never  grasped  the  ratio  ^  :  \  before, 
as  that  of  a  third  to  "a  third  and  the  half  of  a  third.  The 
human  thinking  machine  would  act  at  a  much  greater  advan- 
tage if  it  formed  clear  conceptions  of  elementary  ideas  before 
it  took  to  symbols." 


Professional  Ignorance  349 

TRAINING  OF  TEACHERS 

Rolliii's  Method  of  Teaching  and  Studying  Belles  Lettres 

"  In  reading  such  books  as  this  one  cannot  help  being 
struck  with  the  Httle  progress  we  make  in  the  art  of  teaching. 
Take  e.g.  the  simple  matter  of  exercises.  Rollin  gives  rea- 
sons why  the  study  of  language  should  begin  with  :  (i)  reading 
an  author,  (2)  having  it  explained  by  the  teacher,  (3)  last  in 
order,  exercises.  His  reasons  may  be  good  or  bad,  but  school- 
masters know  nothing  about  them  and  start  their  pupils  in 
language  almost  at  random.  T.  K.  Arnold  wrote  a  useful 
book  for  Latin  Prose  and  got  a  name.  Schoolmasters  there- 
fore adopted  his  Henry's  First  Latin  Book  and  his  First 
French  Book,  &c.,  books  which  for  beginners  are  intensely 
absurd,  even  if  the  books  were  better  and  kept  to  the  high- 
ways of  the  language  instead  of  bewildering  the  beginner 
by  taking  him  into  by-paths.  Yet  some  people  (M.  G.  at 
Cranleigh)  put  boys  to  begin  even  French  with  his  book  or 
a  book  like  De  Fivas. 

"  I  shouldn't  grumble  if  headmasters  had  thought  about 
the  subject,  knew  the  different  ways  in  which  a  language  may 
be  begun,  and  deliberately  preferred  such  a  plan  as  this.  I 
might  differ  from  a  headmaster  who  adopted  such  a  plan  as 
beginning  with  De  Fivas,  but  I  am  not  infallible,  and  I  would 
by  all  means  have  him  exercise  his  own  judgment,  but  what 
I  grumble  at  is  that  he  has  not  judged  at  all,  that  he  knows 
nothing  and  cares  nothing  about  the  various  plans  which 
are  open  to  him,  and  so  adopts  any  book  that  he  finds 
in  general  use,  and  quotes  in  his  defence  the  practice  of 
other  people,  most  of  whom  are  acting  as  unintelligently  as 
himself." 


350  R.  H.  Quick 


Training  of  secondary  teachers 

"  Temple's  plan  was  to  come  and  take  a  form  in  the  pre- 
sence of  a  young  master.  The  form-master  never  knew  when 
he  was  coming.  He  just  came  in,  said  he  should  take  the 
form,  and  went  on,  the  form-master  looking  on.  Sometimes 
Temple  did  not  stay  more  than  half-an-hour,  and  left  the 
form-master  to  finish  the  lesson.  When  Temple  had  paid 
several  such  visits  and  let  the  masters  see  how  he  had 
taught,  he  would  come  and  look  on  himself  and  afterwards 
give  hints  to  the  master  about  his  teaching.  Arthur  Butler 
did  the  same  at  Haileybury  and  found  that  his  masters  liked 
it.  Bradley's  plan  at  Marlborough  was  to  have  elaborate  re- 
views and  to  enter  a  carefully  written  report  touching  all  weak 
points  in  a  book  which  was  kept  in  the  Common  Room.  One 
great  advantage  of  this  plan  was  that  a  new  master,  by  reading 
this  book,  could  find  out  the  sort  of  things  in  which  forms 
failed.  Of  course  such  a  plan  would  be  valueless  unless  the 
reports  were  more  exactly  correct  than  I  should  have  thought 
possible." 

A  Proposed  Training  College 

"17  March,  '75.  On  Monday  I  was  at  a  meeting  at  Sir 
J.  Kay  Shuttleworth's  about  a  training  College.  There  had 
been  previous  meetings,  and  I  had  been  at  two  of  them.  In 
the  days  of  the  Endowed  Schools  Commission  the  Commis- 
sioners had  pressed  on  the  Trustees  of  the  Betton  Charity 
to  let  some  endowment  go  to  a  Training  College.  The 
Trustees  did  not  see  it  and  the  Commission  was  moribund, 
so  the  correspondence  ceased.  The  present  Charity  Commis- 
sioners have  all  the  powers  of  the  Endowed  Schools  Commis- 
sion, and  Robinson  is  one  of  them,  but  there  is  a  change  of 
tradition.  These  Charity  Commissioners  have  hitherto  always 
had  to  get  consent  of  trustees,  and  a  certain  Sir  James  Hill 


Proposed  Training  College  351 

(model  official  person  apparently)  seems  inclined  to  let  the 
more  stringent  provisions  of  the  Endowed  Schools  Act  be  a 
dead  letter.  We  saw  the  Commissioners,  but  got  little  by  so 
doing.  In  their  written  answer  they  coolly  propose  that  zve 
should  tackle  the  Trustees. 

"  On  Monday  we  found  as  usual  that  there  were  all  sorts 
of  opinions  as  to  what  should  be  done.  Sir  J.  K.  S.  has 
drawn  up  a  sort  of  double-barrelled  proposal,  but  whether 
we  should  attempt  to  get  up  a  College  for  ushers  or  for 
men  who  have  taken  high  honours  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge 
seems  a  disputed  point.  At  present  we  are  writing  for  the 
advice  of  the  Head  Masters'  Committee. 

"The  more  one  goes  on  in  life,  the  more  one  is  struck 
by  the  boundless  ignorance  of  people.  There  were  we  (Lord 
Lytton  in  Chair,  Sir  J.  K.  S.,  Percival,  Abbott,  Faunthorpe, 
Brereton,  Tufnell,  Eve,  Dr  Rigg,  myself).  We  had  met  to 
consider  a  scheme  for  a  Training  College  for  secondary  mas- 
ters. In  the  middle  of  the  discussion  Tufnell  said  casually, 
'  By  the  way,  what  have  they  of  this  sort  in  France  ? '  Sir 
J.  K.  S.  didn't  know,  but  thought  it  didn't  matter  :  '  French 
education  was  in  ruins.'  I  muttered  Ecole  Normale  Supe- 
rieure,  but  not  very  loud.  Like  most  EngUshmen  speaking 
a  foreign  language,  I  avoid  false  pronunciation  as  much  as 
possible  by  not  pronouncing  the  words  loud  enough  for  any- 
one to  understand  them.  Nobody  else  volunteered  informa- 
tion or  seemed  to  think  further  information  desirable.  Even 
to  such  men  '  France  '  apparently  was  synonymous  with  '  the 
continent,'  and  nobody  said  that  there  was  another  nation 
whose  educational  system  is  supposed  not  to  be  in  ruins." 

"  I  May,  '75.  On  the  29th  there  was  the  meeting  of 
Sir  J.  K.  Shuttleworth's  Committee  with  the  Head  Masters' 
Committee  about  a  Training  College  at  the  University  or  else- 
where. What  we  wanted  was  an  expression  of  opinion  from 
the  H.  M.'s  that  something  ought  to  be  done  for  training 
men  before  they  were  intrusted  with  a   form   in   school,  but 


352  R.  H.  Quick 

bodies  won't  move  without  a  leader,  and  somehow  no  head- 
master there  took  a  very  keen  interest  in  the  matter,  Percival 
excepted,  and  he  writes  very  much  better  than  he  speaks. 
The  Masters  said  they  had  considered  the  thing  over  and 
over  before,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  nothing 
could  be  done.  On  the  whole  they  seemed  rather  bored, 
and  were  simply  obstructive. 

"  But  it  seems  to  me  that,  whether  one  considers  the 
question  a  priori  or  a  posteriori,  one  must  conclude  that 
the  present  state  of  things  is  intensely  bad.  It  is  easy  to 
show  a  priori  that  a  man  has  a  great  deal  to  learn  before 
he  can  be  a  competent  and  clear-sighted  teacher.  And  if 
one  considers  the  men  that  our  present  system  produces, 
one  cannot  help  being  profoundly  dissatisfied.  Although  our 
public  schoolmasters  are  men  of  the  highest  education  and 
of  marked  success  in  intellectual  studies,  they  hardly  any  of 
them  know  or  care  anything  about  the  intellectual  side  of 
their  profession.  All  their  energy  goes  into  petty  details,  and 
they  care  for  nothing  else.  Some  few  of  them  have  outside 
intellectual  pursuits,  but  most  are  too  hard  worked  to  do  more 
than  simply  amuse  themselves  when  school- work  is  over. . . . 

"  To  put  a  senior  classic  without  any  preparation  to  teach 
small  boys  Latin  is  like  setting  Joachim  or  Millais  down  to 
teaching  beginners  the  rudiments  of  music  or  painting.  And 
in  one  way  the  artist  or  musician  has  a  great  pull  over  the 
classical  scholar.  They  can  inspire  enthusiasm  by  drawing 
or  playing  for  the  learners,  but  the  fourth  form  would  not  be 
much  impressed  by  Hallam's  construing  to  them  or  making 
verses  for  them." 

Waste  of  poiver  in  teaching  through  ignorance  of 
the  teachers 

"The  great  weakness  of  school  systems  is  that  the  forces 
do  not  act  precisely  in  the  same  direction,  and  in  no  country 


Examination  of  Teachers  353 

is  this  want  of  force  so  enormous  as  among  ourselves.  As 
for  system  we  have  none,  and  whatever  is  done  is  done  with 
immense  labour.  We  are  of  the  race  Mr  M.  Arnold  has 
nicknamed  '  Hebrews,'  people  who  think  everything  must 
come  all  right  if  they  mean  well  and  keep  pegging  away. 
Force  is  the  great  thing,  we  say :  don't  let  us  waste  time 
in  overnicety  about  its  direction.  So  if  we  take  any  good 
English  school  we  find  an  immense  amount  of  activity  in  it, 
activity  of  the  masters,  that  is.  Every  man  works  his  eight 
or  ten  hours  a  day.  He  glories  in  the  amount  of  the  work 
he  gets  through,  and  thinks  of  it  as  a  good  thing  in  itself 
independently  of  results.  So  he  is  quite  contented  if  he 
himself  is  fully  employed  and  his  boys  are  orderly  and  learn 
their  lessons.  What  the  outcome  of  his  instructions  is,  how 
his  teaching  fits  in  with  the  teaching  the  boys  have  got 
before  they  come  to  him,  and  after  they  rise  to  a  higher 
form,  he  never  asks  himself;  in  fact,  he  knows  nothing 
about  the  work  of  his  colleagues,  and  they  know  nothing 
about  his. 

"  I  was  once  talking  to  an  architect,  and  on  asking  him 
some  simple  question  about  the  thrust  of  an  arch,  I  found 
he  knew  nothing  whatever  about  the  matter.  '  How  do  you 
avoid  the  danger  of  your  buildings  coming  down?'  said  I. 
'  Oh,'  he  rephed,  '  we  always  make  everything  so  thick  that 
there  cannot  be  any  risk.'  In  other  words,  he  wasted  a  pro- 
digious amount  of  force  in  everything  he  built  just  for  want 
of  knowing  where  the  forces  should  be  applied.  And  this  he 
did  at  the  expense  of  his  clients.  In  a  similar  way  our  school- 
masters lavish  force,  but  the  loss  in  their  case  is  partly  their 
own,  partly  their  clients'." 

Examination  of  Teachers 

"  If  we  allow,  as  I  think  we  must,  that  some  first-rate 
teachers  would  do  very  badly  in  examination,  and  that  some 
of  those  distinguished  in  the   examination  would  make  very 


354  ^-  ^-  Q^i^^^^ 

bad  teachers,  we  may  be  accused  of  instituting  tests  which 
are  really  no  tests  at  all.  ]]ut  in  point  of  fact  these  exami- 
nations are  not  instituted  as  tests,  but  we  think  that  anyone 
who  wishes  to  teach  may  well  prepare  for  this  examination, 
and  we  think  every  teacher  would  be  the  better  for  doing 
so.  The  bishops  insist  on  all  candidates  for  their  examina- 
tions (all  Cambridge  candidates  at  least)  having  passed  the 
Voluntary,  and  no  one  is  admitted  to  the  Voluntary  till 
he  has  attended  certain  lectures.  Of  course  a  carper  might 
have  said,  '  Here  is  a  pretty  test  for  Holy  Orders  —  have  you 
attended  so  many  lectures?  If  not,  you  are  unfit  to  be 
ordained.'  And  of  course  the  bishops  and  the  Universities 
would  have  replied,  *  It  is  true  a  man's  fitness  is  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  attendance  at  these  lectures,  but  we  think 
candidates  for  Holy  Orders  will  be  benefited  by  attending 
them,  and  so  we  impose  the  condition  on  all  who  wish  to 
take  Orders." 

Teachers'  Examination  of  College  of  Preceptors 

"  I  am  now  looking  over  these  Teachers'  papers.  There 
is  a  good  deal  of  stuff  and  verbiage,  but  somebody  is  sure 
to  say  something  sensible.  The  English  is  generally  very 
bad  —  full  of  long  words,  or  slipslop,  or  both.  One  has  such 
expressions  as  'tables  without  legs  to,'  'on  purpose  to  wridng,' 
used  instead  of  '  for  the  purpose  of.' 

"  One  of  my  questions  was  '  The  uses  and  drawbacks  of 
the  black-board.'  Most  take  arithmetic  as  the  subject  to 
illustrate  their  use  of  the  black-board,  and  incidentally  show 
much  bad  teaching.  Not  one  of  them  suggests  drawing  lines 
or  other  magnitudes  and  subdividing  them  to  show  the  mean- 
ing of  fractions.  They  write  '  the  rule  '  or  work  a  sum  with 
copious  explanations. 

"  I  asked  about  the  effect  of  marks  on  learning  and  teach- 
ing.    The  latter  effect  the  teachers  don't  seem  at  all  conscious 


Training  of  Teachers  355 

of.  Only  one  lias  said  that  marking  makes  the  teacher  more 
attentive  to  the  individual  pupil.  The  fact  is,  marking  has  a 
tremendous  influence  over  the  teaching.  It  tends  to  convert 
the  teacher  into  an  examiner  and  exacter  of  work.  In  one 
way  this  is  good ;  it  tends  to  stop  the  '  copious  explanation  ' 
style  of  teaching  ;  but  in  another  way  it  is  bad,  for  in  his 
effort  to  mark  fairly  the  master  is  driven  too  much  on  ex- 
acting memory-work  only  ;  other  work  cannot  be  knocked  off 
and  docketed  with  the  same  certainty.  Then  again,  marks 
keep  the  teaching  to  the  matter  in  hand  and  prevent  the 
teacher,  who  is  brimming  over  with  knowledge,  from  diva- 
gations. Per  contia  marks  often  act  like  a  strait-waistcoat 
and  prevent  all  activity,  even  of  the  healthiest  kind." 

Training  of  Teachers.     A  debate 

"Feb.  10,  1877.  Last  night  I  was  at  Abbott's,  where  we 
had  the  first  dinner  of  the  London  U.  U.'s.^  The  subject 
was  '  The  Training  of  Teachers.'  Abbott  spoke  in  favour 
of  preliminary  instruction:  (i)  in  the  history  of  education, 
(2)  in  mental  physiology,  (3)  in  class  drill,  (4)  in  class  man- 
agement, (5)  in  ways  of  teaching.  He  cut  down  his  details 
too  much,  and  the  instances  he  gave  were  pet  dodges  of  his 
own  which  other  men  might  not  take  to.  The  best  illustration 
he  gave  of  the  need  of  younger  masters  being  looked  after  was 
his  own  early  correction  of  composition.  He  nearly  rewrote 
the  boy's  copies  of  verses,  &c.,  and  the  consequence  was,  not 
merely  that  the  corrections  were  useless,  but  positively  mis- 
chievous. The  boys  couldn't  take  in  all,  so  they  took  in 
none,  and  the  amount  of  correction  discouraged  them.  No 
doubt  young  teachers,  especially  if  they  are  energetic,  fall  into 
many  such  mistakes  as  these;  but  if  they  are  sensible  men  a 

^  A  small  club  of  London  schoolmasters  who  met  at  each  others' 
houses  for  symposia,  in  both  senses  of  the  word. 


356  R.  H.   Quick 

hint  from  a  supervising  superior  would  put  them  right.  So 
far,  then,  these  mistakes  prove  merely  the  need  of  supervision 
for  the  young  teacher.  Fitch  gave  an  account  of  Training 
Colleges,  and  said  that  trained  teachers  were  far  superior  to 
others  as  teachers,  but  that  they  were  narrowed  by  being  so 
separated  from  people  of  other  pursuits  and  interests.  He 
gave  an  amusing  account  of  the  commencement  of  training 
in  this  country.  Bell's  system  at  Westminster  was  to  make 
the  candidate  teachers  take  their  places  in  the  lowest  forms 
and   work   upwards,    going   through    every   stage    themselves. 

Lancaster,  in  the  Borough  Road,  did  not  require  this.     B , 

a  School  Inspector,  differed  from  Fitch  about  the  superiority 
of  trained  teachers.  He  heartily  wished,  he  said,  that  the 
Training  Colleges  would  give  knowledge  only,  and  would  not 
attempt  to  teach  teaching.  The  consequence  of  the  attempt 
was  that  all  the  trained  teachers  had  their  cut  and  dried 
methods,  by  which  the  Inspectors  were  perfectly  sickened. 
They  always  began  a  lesson  in  the  same  way.  If  it  was 
grammar,  they  asked,  'What  is  grammar?'  If  it  was  an 
object-lesson,  they  began  by  showing  a  lump  of  coal  and 
saying  it  was  opaque,  &c.  X.  said  he  had  learnt  a  great 
deal  by  being  a  supernumerary  at  Uppingham,  where  he  took 
different  forms  and  talked  over  the  lesson  with  the  form- 
masters  afterwards.  En  parenfhcse,  I  asked  B.  what  he 
thought  of  Fearon's  book  on  School  Inspection.  He  said 
it  had  been  sent  him  by  the  Education  Office,  but  he  had 
not  read  it.  Every  man  has  his  own  way  of  doing  things. 
The  book  would  take  him  two  or  three  hours  at  the  most 
to  read ;  he  has  it  sent  him  from  the  office,  and  yet  he  has 
not  interest  enough  in  other  people's  ways  to  care  to  read 
it.  Much  improvement  seems  impossible  so  long  as  young 
men  are  so  entirely  self-satisfied  that  they  find  nothing  to 
learn. 

"  But  the  event  of  the  evening  was  a  speech  from  Walker, 
late  of  Manchester,  now  of  St  Paul's.     Walker  is  a  great  force, 


/^  W.    Walker  on   Training  357 

and  he  embodies  in  an  intelligent  form  all  the  mistrust  in 
training  which  shows  itself  unintelligently  in  most  men.  His 
speech  was  somewhat  after  this  manner.  '  I  must  say  I 
am  profoundly  sceptical  of  any  benefit  to  be  derived  from 
training.  It  is  not  of  the  least  use  lecturing  young  men 
about  teaching  when  they  have  had  no  experience  of  the 
thing  itself.  I  am  sure  I  have  learnt  much  more  from  what 
Dr  Abbott  has  said  this  evening  than  I  could  possibly  have 
learnt  from  it  if  I  had  not  been  a  great  many  years  teaching. 
And  I  am  inchned  to  think  that  harm  is  often  done  by  what 
is  called  training  in  teaching.  At  Manchester  I  had  among 
my  assistants  some  first-rate  trained  masters,  but  there  was  a 
mechanical  completeness  about  their  teaching  which  was  very 
deadening.  Whatever  was  the  subject,  they  had  the  whole 
thing  completely  at  their  fingers'  ends,  and  when  they  had 
gone  through  it  one  felt  the  thing  was  done  with,  and  one 
never  wanted  to  hear  of  it  again  so  long  as  one  lived.  There 
was  no  growth  in  the  knowledge  they  implanted.  It  did  not 
in  the  least  inspire  the  desire  for  further  knowledge.  An  in- 
tellectual man  from  the  University  might  seem  very  inferior 
in  teaching  power,  but  the  boys'  minds  in  the  end  were  more 
awakened  by  him,  and  there  was  endless  power  of  growth 
in  the  man  himself:  he  was  not  finished  off  like  the  other 
men.  Then  as  to  class  drill,  we  may  have  a  great  deal  too 
much  of  it.  Really  good,  inspiriting  teaching  is  perhaps  im- 
possible with  what  is  called  by  trained  schoolmasters  perfect 
order.  I  have  found  a  good  deal  of  seeming  laxity  of  dis- 
cipline in  the  forms  of  the  very  best  teachers.  I  think, 
therefore,  that  a  man  who  has  the  activity  of  mind  and  the 
general  interests  which  our  best  Universitymen  have  will  do 
better  in  the  schools  themselves  without  any  artificial  system 
of  training.' 

"  So  far  Walker,  and  as  he  was  by  far  the  strongest  man 
there  (Abbott  might  beat  him  by  agility,  as  in  the  P.  R.  a 
light  weight  might  sometimes  get  the  better  of  a  heavy  weighty 


358  R.  //.  Qiiick 

but  in  strength  W.  is  the  better  man),  as  W.,  I  say,  was  the 
strongest  man  present,  he  had  what  seemed  an  easy  victory. 
Abbott  indeed  objected  with  good  effect  that  the  deficiencies 
of  our  present  trained  teachers  come,  not  from  their  know- 
ledge of  methods  of  teaching,  but  from  their  want  of  extended 
knowledge  and  culture.  For  my  own  part  I  sincerely  want  to 
get  at  the  truth  of  the  matter,  and  if  I  find  myself  opposed 
to  Walker  and  Hutton,  who  doubt  '  whether  there  is  or  can 
be  a  definite  and  teachable  art  of  teaching  as  distinct  from 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject  to  be  taught '  {Spectator, 
lo  Feb.  '77),  it  is  because  I  see  crying  evils  in  our  present 
practice,  and  when  things  are  intolerable  as  they  are,  we 
should  not  keep  harping  on  a  priori  objections  to  all  at- 
tempts at  improvement.  I  say  the  objections  are  a  priori, 
because  we  have  no  experience  of  men  or  women  who  are 
both  highly  educated  and  also  trained  as  teachers.  A  boy 
or  girl  learns  to  read,  write  and  cipher  in  our  elementary 
schools,  is  then  put  to  teach  other  children  all  day  long  for 
three  years,  then  has  knowledge  pumped  in  as  fast  as  possible 
in  a  training  college  and  issues  forth  the  trained  teacher. 
With  a  young  person  so  brought  up  we  compare  a  man  who 
remained  at  a  public  school  under  really  intellectual  teachers 
for  five  or  six  years,  and  then  had  this  teaching  continued 
for  three  or  four  years  more  by  the  ablest  men  at  the  Uni- 
versity. It  is  discovered  that  the  poor  certificated  master  is 
much  more  narrow  in  his  intellect  than  the  University  man, 
and  we  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  this  narrowness  must 
have  been  caused  by  the  one  thing  he  has  had  and  the 
other  man  has  not  had  —  instruction  in  methods  of  teaching. 
So  our  dread  of  the  '  pragmatic  and  pedantic  class '  is  really 
an  objection  a  priori.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  no  one 
would  be  made  pragmatic  or  pedantic  by  pedagogic  techni- 
cahties,  but  if  there  is  any  risk  of  the  kind  I  think  we  should 
encounter  it  rather  than  go  on  as  we  are.  No  doubt  the 
badness  of  the  teachinsi   in   our   lower  middle-class   schools 


Cambridge  Confei'encc  on    Training      359 

and  in  our  girls'  schools  comes  from  the  want  of  mental 
training,  not  of  scholastic  training  in  the  teachers,  and  no 
amount  of  scholastic  learning  would  make  up  for  this ;  but 
I  tliink  these  teachers  would  teach  the  better  (or  less  badly), 
and  would  have  a  more  intelligent  interest  in  their  profession 
if  they  received  some  instruction  in  it.  Perhaps  this  instruc- 
tion should  not  be  given  at  first.  Walker's  best  point  was 
that  the  mind  is  not  open  to  receive  knowledge  about  a 
subject  till  it  has  some  acquaintance  with  the  thing  itself. 
I  fear  that  Mrs  Grey,  who  is  apt  to  stick  to  the  best  pos- 
sible instead  of  the  best  obtainable,  has  not  arranged  for  the 
best  possible  even  in  this  case,  for  her  students  are  not  to 
be  allowed  to  earn  money  while  students.  I  should  wish  the 
learners  to  be  teachers  from  the  first,  but  they  should  have 
plenty  of  time  and  they  should  work  under  supervision  and 
should  see  teaching.  Every  large  school  might  have  a  young 
teacher  or  two  attached  as  supernumeraries,  and  they  might 
work  under  different  masters  in  turn." 

Cambridge  Conferejice  on  Training  of  Teachers 

"  28  Nov.  1877.  I  have  been  to  Cambridge  to-day  to 
attend  the  discussion  in  the  Arts  Schools.  Lately  I  have 
been  so  firmly  impressed  with  my  weakness  as  a  speaker 
and  of  the  horrors  endured  from  bad  speaking  that  I  had 
meant  not  to  open  my  lips.  But  I  was  so  struck  with  the 
poorness  of  the  speaking  that  I  broke  my  resolution  and 
spoke  rather  in  a  rambling  fashion,  as  I  had  a  large  area  of 
subject  and  had  not  settled  beforehand  what  I  was  going  to 
say.  But  I  gain  this  much  from  the  experience,  that  if  I  can 
get  over  nervousness  (to-day  I  was  not  particularly  nervous) 
and  know  the  heads  of  what  I  intend  to  say,  I  can  at  all 
events  speak  up  to  the  English  average.  I  never  yet  have 
spoken  with  notes,  and  so  tend  to  discursiveness.  In  ser- 
mons one  has  platitudes  to  fall  back  upon,  and  so  extempore 


o 


60  R.  H.  Quick 


preaching  is  the  worst  training  possible  for  exercise  in  speak- 
ing.    But  enough  of  mere  speaking. 

"  A  memorial  had  been  presented  to  the  Senate  urging  the 
University  :  (i)  to  provide  teaching  in  didactics  by  professors 
or  otherwise,  (2)  to  examine  on  the  subject.  Abbott  began 
and  spoke  methodically,  first  on  need,  secondly  on  means. 
He  combated  the  notions  that  the  teacher  was  born,  not  made, 
and  that  training  was  narrowing.  All  this  was  methodically 
done,  but  without  much  go  in  it,  and  perhaps  more  enter- 
taining to  people  fresh  to  the  subject  than  it  was  to  me. 
He  then  hit  upon  a  point  I  had  thought  of,  the  greatly  in- 
creased and  increasing  complexity  of  studies,  which  makes 
some  rationale  of  instruction  necessary.  He  then  said  that 
Percival  recommended  testing  the  practical  skill  of  young 
masters  by  the  state  of  their  forms  at  the  end  of  the  first 
year.  (A  poor  suggestion ;  who  could  test  the  state  of  a 
form,  coming  in  from  the  University  and  not  knowing  what 
the  boys  were  when  the  young  master  first  took  charge  of 
them  ?)  Abbott  gave  his  own  experience,  which  was  that  in 
beginning  to  teach  in  a  ragged  school  at  Cambridge  all  his 
pupils  gradually  deserted  him.  The  end  of  Abbott's  speech 
was  the  best  thing  in  it.  Bradley,  of  University  College, 
Oxford,  used  to  say  that  every  new  master  cost  the  school 
an  additional  year's  salary  by  his  bad  carving  in  hall  and 
another  by  his  bad  teaching  in  school.  Eve  came  next  and 
made  some  good  points,  but  jerkily.  He  said  he  had  such 
great  difficulty  in  getting  rudimentary  subjects  well  taught  that 
his  boys  spent  far  too  long  time  on  them.  Teachers  should 
stand  on  the  shoulders  of  their  predecessors.  Floating  know- 
ledge of  the  art  of  teaching  never  gets  concentrated.  One 
great  use  of  training  is  that  it  sets  teachers  to  think  about 
teaching.  Stuart  came  next.  Henry  Sidgwick  then  asked 
questions.  There  were,  he  said,  two  parts  of  the  scheme  ; 
(i)  practical  training,  (2)  theoretical  study.  What  theory  was 
taught  to  Elementary  Schoolmasters?     Sharpe  answered  that 


"  spectator  "  •  on    Tr'aiuing  36 1 

they  were  lectured  on  the  theory  twice  a  week.  Why  had 
the  Headmasters  failed  to  get  men  to  train  in  the  schools 
themselves?  Abbott  said  there  was  so  much  demand  that 
the  Headmasters  could  not  force  the  assistants.  Hudson 
thought  men  should  not  be  required  to  walk  in  the  steps 
pointed  out  by  the  professor.  Why  not  have  various  Lec- 
turers, Headmasters,  &c.?  Abbott  said  this  would  be  good,  ^ 
and  this  course  had  been  proposed  at  Oxford,  but  a  pro- 
fessor was  also  necessary.  Abbott  also  mentioned  books 
about  education,  but  did  not  seem  to  know  much  about 
them.  He  specially  praised  Stow,^  but  did  not  know  the 
name  of  his  book.  Hort  said  the  difficulties  were  mainly 
practical  difficulties.  Should  the  University  train  or  ex- 
amine? Could  the  Universities  train?  Where  were  the 
practising  schools  ?  (Abbott  said  the  elementary  schools,  but 
was  vague.)  Heitland  said  young  teachers  did  not  despise 
instruction  in  the  art  of  teaching  as  some  of  the  speakers 
had  assumed.  Oscar  Browning  spoke  next  —  not  much  on 
the  spot.  The  Master  of  St  John's  (Bateson)  referred  to 
Scotland,  a  country  from  which  we  may  condescend  to  learn, 
as  it  is  not  put  out  of  the  pale  oceano  dissociabili. 

"The  meeting  was  a  frightfully  unanimous  one,  not  an 
orator  in  the  room  was  obstructive.  Everyone  wanted  to 
learn  what  outsiders  and  schoolmasters  could  tell  them.  But 
the  whole  thing  was  discussed  too  much  in  the  lump,  and 
with  considerable  vagueness  in  consequence." 

Teachers''  Exami)wtions 

"4  Aug.  1879,  Lucerne.  My  dear  Mr  Hutton,  I  vvill  not 
at  present  trouble  '  the  Editor  of  the  Spectator '  with  any  more 
letters,  but  I  should  like  to  point  out  privately  to  the  writer 
of  the  paragraph  on  Examinations  of  Teachers  in  last  week's 
Spectator  what  seems  to  me  a  misapprehension  of  his.  He 
evidently  thinks  that  the  new  examinations  are  meant  to  be 

^  T/id  Training  System  of  Education,  by  David  Stow. 


362  R.  H.  Quick 

tests  of  teaching  power,  and  he  sees  that  the  higher  ([uahties 
of  the  teacher  cannot  be  tested  in  this  way,  so  he  naturally 
poohpoohs  the  examinations.  But  it  must  have  occurred  to 
him  that  in  every  profession  a  man's  excellence  depends  on 
the  unexaminable  part  of  him,  not  on  the  examinable.  A 
general  of  the  pre-scientific  age  told  me  the  other  day  that 
the  absurdity  of  examinations  had  been  proved  at  last.  Lieut. 
Bromhead,  who  showed  himself  such  a  splendid  soldier  at 
Rorke's  Drift,  was  a  man  who  had  been  plucked  in  his  ex- 
amination for  his  company.  Since  then  poor  Lieut.  Carey,  a 
staff-college  man,  seems  to  have  lost  his  head  at  the  critical 
moment.  Now  there  would  be  obvious  inconveniences  in 
keeping  parties  of  Zulus  to  rush  down  and  try  to  assegai 
men  under  examination,  and  till  this  is  done  we  have  no 
means  of  finding  how  a  man  would  behave  in  critical  cir- 
cumstances. But,  in  spite  of  such  excellent  authorities  as 
my  friend  the  general  and  the  writer  of  your  paragraph,  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  examinations  may  have  their  uses 
for  all  that.  Examinations  secure  to  some  extent  at  least 
that  the  teacher  has  thought  about  what  he  is  doing  and 
why  he  is  doing  it ;  and  further,  that  he  knows  the  best  that 
has  been  thought  and  done  by  other  people.  No  doubt  this 
thought  and  knowledge,  though  it  will  enable  a  man  to  pass 
a  good  examination,  will  not  make  him  a  good  teacher,  but 
it  will  nevertheless  be  of  great  use  to  all  teachers,  both  good 
and  bad.  The  good  will  be  the  better  for  it  and  the  bad 
not  quite  so  bad.  As  for  telling  who  are  the  really  good 
men,  this  can  be  done  in  the  teaching  profession,  (and  in 
every  other)  only,  as  your  writer  says,  by  fruits,  whether  the 
fruits  be  repulsed  Zulus  or  cured  patients  or  gained  law- 
suits or  well-trained  youths.  The  next  time  the  writer  of 
the  paragraph  has  occasion  to  touch  on  the  subject  I  hope 
he  will  admit  that  examinations  may  have  a  raison  d'etre, 
though  they  do  not  test  teaching  power.  Yours  very  truly, 
R.  H.  Q." 


An  Examination  paper  363 


QUESTIONS    FOR    EXAMINATION    OF   TEACHERS 

I.  "What  meaning  do  you  attach  to  Non  miilta  scd  miil- 
tum  ?     Discuss  its  vakie  as  a  principle  for  the  teacher. 

2  A.  How  would  you  cultivate  the  habit  of  continuous 
attention  in  children  between  eight  and  ten?  What  mistakes 
is  a  teacher  likely  to  make  in  this  matter? 

2  B.  How  would  you  endeavour  to  get,  and  how  to  keep 
the  attention? 

3.  Is  it  your  opinion  that  if  we  are  ignorant  of  two  sub- 
jects, A  and  B,  we  increase  or  that  we  decrease  our  power  of 
learning  B  by  learning  A?  Discuss  the  question  with  reference 
to  particular  subjects. 

4.  A  School  Inspector  has  spoken  of  the  infonts  in  a 
primary  school  as  '  the  fag-end  of  the  first  standard.'  Show 
that  the  language  is  inappropriate. 

5.  'AH  intellectual  teaching  is  founded  on  the  perception 
of  differences.'  Discuss  this  with  reference  to  two  subjects  of 
your  own  choosing. 

6.  Ordinary  teaching  is  in  a  great  measure  taken  up  with 
establishing  habitual  sequences  or  trains  of  thought.  Point 
out  some  instances  in  which  this  is  done  with  good  and  some 
with  bad  effect.     (24  B  67) 

7.  '  Savoir  par  coeur  n'est  pas  savoir.'  (Montaigne.) 
Criticize. 

8.  It  has  been  said  that  a  teacher  should  have  thorough 
knowledge  of  a  subject  before  he  is  fit  to  teach  the  elements.. 
Discuss  this  with  reference  to  :    (rtr)  classics,  (/;)  history. 

9.  If  you  took  a  form  of  25  boys  in  a  prepared  piece  of 
construing,  how  would  you  test  and  give  marks  for  preparation? 
If  the  lesson  were  an  hour's  lesson,  how  much  time  would  you 
give  for  testing  each  boy? 

10.  If  you  had  to  start  a  class  of  25  boys  (average  age  11) 
in  a  new  language,  how  should   you  set  to  work?     Describe 


364  R.  H.   Quick 

four  possil^le  ways,  and  give  reasons  in  defence  of  the  method 
you  would  adopt. 

11.  If  a  boy  began  a  new  language  at  11  years  old,  at 
what  stage  would  you  have  him  begin  to  use  a  dictionary? 
How  should  he  use  it? 

12.  Describe  a  model  reading  lesson  of  one  hour  in  a 
class  of  30  boys  who  can  all  read  fluently.  Name  the  various 
aims  which  the  teacher  will  keep  in  view. 

13.  What  defects  of  the  mental  power  are  commonly 
spoken  of  as  '  a  bad  memory'?  How  should  the  teacher 
endeavour  to  correct  them? 

14.  How  would  you  cultivate  your  pupils'  power  of  ex- 
pression in  English,  ist  in  writing,  2nd  in  viva  voce? 

15.  'The  people  that  have  the  best  schools  will  be  the 
leading  people  ;  if  they  do  not  lead  to-day,  they  will  lead  to- 
morrow.'    Criticize  this  assertion. 

16.  In  what  way  would  you  begin  to  teach  children 
geography  ? 

17.  Name  the  manuals  of  pedagogy  that  you  have 
studied  throughout,  and  in  a  separate  list  those  you  have 
partly  read.  What  are  the  chief  things  you  have  learnt  from 
these  books? 

18.  In  the  Ecole  Modele  at  Brussels  all  the  lessons  last 
|-  hr.,  and  the  children  go  out  to  play  for  the  remaining 
quarter.     Criticize  the  plan  and  compare  some  others  with  it. 

19.  Describe  an  ordinary  dictation  lesson  for  English. 
Name  common  defects,  and  show  how  these  may  be  reme- 
died. Name  some  variations  that  may  be  made  in  giving  a 
dictation  lesson. 

20.  How  may  dictation  lessons  be  given  in  teaching  a 
foreign  language? 

21.  Su]:)|>ose  a  form  of  about  12  years  old  had  prepared 
and  construed  a  piece  in  which  were  the  words  '  (iraviter 
te  castigassem  nisi  iratus  essem,'  and  books  having  been 
closed,  you  were  going  to  ([uestion  with    place-taking.     Give 


All  Examination  paper  365 

ten  questions  you  would  ask  on  the  above  words.     How  many 
and  what  different  kinds  of  questions  would  you  give? 

22.  What  are  the  chief  mistakes  a  teacher  is  liable  to  fall 
into  about  the  correction  of  written  work? 

23.  Ciive,  by  means  of  examples,  different  kinds  of  ques- 
tions which  should  be  asked  to  practise  boys  (age  10 — 11)  in 
the  four  rules  of  simple  arithmetic. 

24.  Describe  the  kinds  of  pictures,  both  with  regard  to  sub- 
ject and  treatment  of  subject,  which  you  would  use  in  teaching 
children  of  8 — 10  years  old.  How  would  you  use  these  pic- 
tures?    What  pictures  would  you  use  with  boys  of  13 — 16? 

25.  Give  some  methods  of  keeping  up  knowledge  of  back 
lessons  in  :   (i)  Latin,  (2)  English  poetry. 

26.  '  Written  work,  when  first  done,  is  the  raw  material, 
from  which  knowledge  is  to  be  worked  up.'  Pillans.  How 
would  you  apply  this  to  short  answers  (written  in  school)  to 
a  set  of  ([uestions  on  geography? 

27.  If  you  were  the  master  of  a  boarding-school,  how 
would  you  try  to  know  about  and  to  influence  your  pupils' 
private  reading  (reading  for  themselves)  ? 

28.  What  is  tedium?  How  is  it  made  common  in  the 
schoolroom?     How  should  it  be  avoided? 

29.  What  do  you  understand  by  the  '  Educational  effect  of 
games  '  ?     Discuss  the  master's  action  with  reference  to  games. 

30.  If  you  had  a  class-room  to  fit  up  in  the  best  possible 
way,  what  arrangements  should  you  make  about  the  black- 
board? What  use  would  you  make  of  the  black-board  in 
giving:  (1)  a  geography  lesson?  (2)  a  lesson  in  Latin  gram- 
mar?    What  inconveniences  arise  in  using  the  black-board? 

31.  Contrast  the  advantages  of  giving  information  viva 
voce  and  by  the  text-book.  Take  first  the  case  of  boys  of 
fourteen  and   then  of  ten  years  old. 

32.  Supjjose  you  had  the  management  of  a  scholar's 
library  for  boys  under  fifteen,  name  ten  books  you  would 
consider  indispensable. 


366  R.  H.   Quick 

33.  '  Knowledge  dwells 

In  heads  replete  with  thought  of  other  men, 
Wisdom  in  heads  attentive  to  their  own.' 
Discuss  this  with  reference  to  education. 

34.  What  do  you  expect  your  pupils  to  learn  from 
mans,  and  how?  Point  out  some  common  defects  in  school 
atlases. 

35.  If  you  had  to  examine  by  a  paper  a  form  that  had 
read  the  first  book  of  C?esar's  Commentaries,  what  are  the 
points  you  would  aim  at  testing  by  your  questions?  Give  a 
specimen  of  each  class  of  questions." 

The   Cambridge  Lectures  on  Education.     Meaning  of  '  the 
Theory  of  Education  ' 

"  II.  4.  82.  The  Training  of  Teachers  is  just  now  in  a 
critical  state  with  us.  My  own  belief  is  that  the  current  no- 
tions of  education  are  so  profoundly  false  that  some  years 
must  elapse  before  public  opinion  is  sufficiently  enlightened 
to  tolerate  anything  of  the  kind.  The  Cambridge  scheme 
seems  on  the  point  of  falling  through ;  and  this  is  surely 
not  to  be  wondered  at.  The  British  public  is  ignorant  and 
indifferent.  Many  parents  look  upon  the  ordinary  public 
school  course  as  the  natural  and  inevitable  thing  for  youth, 
just  as  a  milk  diet  is  for  infancy.  The  ])arent  has  no  con- 
cern in  the  matter  except  to  pay  the  school  bills.  The  public, 
then,  is  quite  satisfied.  And  the  great  bulk  of  the  teaching 
profession  is  satisfied  also.  The  ordinary  headmaster  can  see 
little  amiss  in  the  system  which  has  produced  him.  So  it  is 
only  just  a  few  of  the  most  active-minded  of  our  schoolmasters 
who  see  that  things  can't  remain  as  they  are,  and  who  wish 
therefore  to  ascertain  what  changes  would  be  best.  When 
neither  tlie  |)ublic  nor  the  teaching  profession  at  large  feel 
the  need  of  any  training  of  teachers,  we  must  not  expect 
young  men   and  young  women   lu  be  before   the    rest   of   the 


Cambridge  Lectures  367 

world,  nor  must  we  expect  a  very  needy  class  of  people  to 
spenil  money  in  obtaining  qualifications  which  nobody  re- 
(juires  from  them.  Still,  when  a  few  able,  active-minded  men 
keep  hammering  away  on  the  same  nail,  the  said  nail  does 
show  a  tendency  to  intrude,  and  so  at  Cambridge  and  else- 
where they  have  got  people  to  assent  to  the  proposition  that 
'  something  ought  to  be  done.'  As  the  esprits  remnants 
naturally  take  the  lead  and  seem  to  speak  for  others  as  well 
as  themselves,  a  few  of  them  were  considered  at  Cambridge 
to  be  '  the  headmasters,'  and  those  two  or  three  esprits  rem- 
nants in  Cambridge  succeeded  in  getting  something  done  '  to 
satisfy  the  headmasters.'  Lecturers  were  appointed  on  the 
History,  Theory  and  Practice  of  Education,  each  lecturer  to 
give  fifteen  lectures  and  have  done  with  it  unless  reappointed 
for  another  year.  The  fee  was  to  be  ^30  for  the  fifteen 
lecturers  plus  students'  fees.  As  I  was  anxious  that  a  good 
start  should  be  made,  I  persuaded  Fitch  and  Ward  to  join 
me  in  making  the  first  year's  courses  free  to  all  comers.  In 
these  circumstances  I  led  off  in  the  October  Term  of  '79 
with  an  audience  varying  from  80  to  100,  but  of  these  only 
some  dozen  were  men.  In  the  Lent  Term  Fitch  lectured 
with  very  great  success.  He  had  throughout  his  lectures 
about  100,  and  there  were  as  many  men  as  women  to  hear 
him.  Ward  has  a  fair  number,  I  believe,  but  not  so  many. 
The  next  year  the  students  had  to  pay  a  guinea  fee  to  each 
lecturer,  and  this  destroyed  the  audience  at  once.  This  year, 
when  Ward  and  I  have  been  again  lecturing  (Ward  lectured 
last  year  on  Theory,  Daniel  on  Practice,  and  Browning  on 
History),  the  audience  has  been  only  ten  women,  and  of 
course  the  whole  thing  has  been  pronounced  a  failure.  Very 
likely  the  Syndicate  will  not  be  reappointed,  and  the  Uni- 
versity will  give  the  thing  up  altogether.  The  examinations 
may  perhaps  be  carried  on  without  any  lectures.  The  Uni- 
versity of  London  has  established  an  examination  for  teachers, 
but  onlv  its  own  irraduates  are  admitted  to  it.     Thus   things 


368  R.  H.  Quick 

stand  at  present.  I  have  now  got  a  letter  from  Birmingham 
asking  me  to  advise  upon  a  scheme  there.  '  What  can  they 
do  for  training  of  teachers  ?  '  At  present  people  have  not 
considered  the  subject  enough  to  know  what  a  vast  amount 
there  is  to  do  in  it.  Dr  Ridding  banters  heavily  about 
Cambridge  examining  in  the  theory  of  education  and  the 
examinations  turning  out  to  be  examinations  in  no  theory. 
It  is  very  hard  to  say  what  he  or  people  in  general  mean 
by  '  theory,'  but  suppose  we  take  it  to  mean  our  conception 
of  what  the  educator  has  to  effect.  This  conception  is  two- 
fold :  first  a  conception  of  what  the  young  ought  to  become, 
secondly  of  the  share  which  the  educator  has  in  bringing 
this  about.  On  both  points  there  is  at  present  much  un- 
certainty in  our  minds.  We  all  have  some  notions  which 
are  mostly  the  traditional  notions  of  the  class  to  which  we 
belong,  and  these  notions,  however  vague  they  may  be,  we 
never  try  to  clear  up  by  study  or  earnest  thought.  Indeed, 
many  people  think  it  safer  to  have  nothing  but  the  vague 
traditional  theory.  If  we  try  to  form  any  clear  conception 
of  what  we  want  the  young  to  become  and  of  the  share  edu- 
cation has  in  forming  them,  we  shall  be  getting  theoretical 
and  shall  be  likely  to  leave  the  high  road  and  be  lost  in 
some  neighbouring  bog.  And  this  fear  is  not  quite  so  ab- 
surd as  it  at  first  appears.  Take  a  simple  case.  The  ele- 
mentary schoolmaster's  theory  is  supplied  to  him  from  *  My 
Lords '  in  the  Code.  He  is  told  that  his  pupils  must  be 
brought  up  to  '  pass '  in  the  tliree  R's.  He  accepts  the 
theory  and  goes  to  work  accordingly.  Rut  supposing  this 
theory  does  not  satisfy  him  :  suppose  he  thinks  out  what  a 
boy  of  twelve  should  be  and  how  his  previous  training  l)ears 
on  this :  suppose  he  finds  that  he  should  be  truth-telling, 
generous-hearted,  should  have  his  will  disciplined  to  do  his 
duty  without  sujiervision,  his  intelligence  trained  to  think 
and  think  rightly  about  what  he  is  doing,  his  eyes  trained 
to    observe    accurately,   and    his    hands    to   work   handily.     If 


Ridding  on    Training  369 

the  schoolmasLer  gets  nny  such  notions  as  these,  he  may  set 
to  work  to  produce  different  results  to  the  results  demanded 
by  the  Code,  and  possibly  he  may  have  some  success  ac- 
cording to  his  theory,  but  fail  according  to  the  theory  of 
A\'hitehall.  I)r  Ridding  has  said  in  his  letter  to  O.  Browning 
that  a  young  master  does  not  want  theory;  thai  is  settled  for 
him  in  the  system  of  the  school  to  which  he  becomes  at- 
tached. Here  of  course  Dr  Ridding  has  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent conception  of  '  theory '  to  mine.  He  means  rather 
conception  of  what  to  do  than  of  what  the  outcome  should 
be.  It  is  obvious  that  the  young  teacher  must  accept  the 
established  system  and  not  attempt  innovation.  Here  of 
course  Dr  Ridding  and  I  are  entirely  at  one.  But  though 
a  young  master  must  accept  all  he  find's,  I  don't  think  it 
should  be  on  the  '  Open  your  mouth  and  shut  your  eyes ' 
principle  advocated  by  Dr  Ridding.  If  he  is  not  at  first  to 
trouble  himself  about  school  theory,  in  other  words,  if  he  is 
not  to  think  what  education  ought  to  do  or  what  is  the  ten- 
dency of  the  system  he  is  engaged  in,  he  will  probably  soon 
get  accustomed  to  routine  and  lose  his  eyesight  as  horses 
do  when  they  work  in  the  dark.  I  agree  with  Dr  Ridding 
that  young  masters  do  not  want  theory  to  tell  them  zvhat  to 
do,  but  they  want  it  to  tell  them  why.  A  young  surgeon 
might  be  guilty  of  manslaughter  if  his  theory  led  him  to  try 
treatment  of  his  own  devising ;  but  I  suppose  none  of  the 
eminent  men  in  the  profession  would  adopt  the  same  line 
as  Ridding  and  say,  *  The  young  practitioner  does  not  want 
theory.  Let  him  dose  his  patient  in  the  usual  way  and  ask 
no  questions.'  Still  I  admit  that  the  mere  rule  of  thumb 
is  sometimes  safer  than  the  man  who  seeks  a  theory.  A 
thinking  blockhead  is  far  more  mischievous  than  a  block- 
head who  lets  others  think  for  him ;  and  even  an  intelligent 
man,  when  he  has  determined  the  right  end,  may  not  hit  on 
the  right  means.  So  there  is  perhaps  some  justification  for 
the  English  dread  of  people  who  are  '  too  theoretical.'  " 

2B 


370  ^'  H.  Quick 


Dr  Ridding  on  the  Training  of  Teachers 

"  12  April,  '82.  There  is  much  wisdom,  or  at  least 
prudence,  shown  in  Dr  Ridding's  letter  to  Oscar  Browning.^ 
If  you  wish  to  be  aggressive  with  safety  you  should  be  very 
careful  in  choosing  the  object  of  your  attack.  Should  you 
sally  out  and  kick  a  small  boy  you  run  little  risk  as  far  as  the 
small  boy  himself  is  concerned.  But  the  boy  may  chance  to 
have  a  navvy  for  his  father  and  the  father  may  appear  upon 
the  scene  and  return  the  kick  with  interest.  It  is  much  better 
to  stuff  a  Guy  which  you  may  kick  about  to  your  heart's 
content.  The  worst  that  can  happen  to  you  is  that  your 
neighbours  may  look  on  somewhat  contemptuously.  Ridding 
has  great  aptitude  for  the  construction  of  Guys,  and  when  he 
has  provided  himself  with  these  adversaries  he  shews  them  no 
mercy.  Here  are  some  specimens  of  them.  '  The  Theory 
of  Education  is  to  be  the  panacea  for  the  schoolmaster's 
failures'  (Letter,  p.  9).  Here  is  another:  'Examination  in 
a  theory  of  education  is  a  training  for  teachers  superior  or 
equal  to  practical  acquaintance'  (p.  12).  Here  is  perhaps  the 
best  of  the  lot :  *  Do  not  let  us  lay  the  flattering  unction  to  our 
souls  that  an  examination  of  aspirant  teachers  in  the  History 
and  Theory  of  Education  will  furnish  the  panacea  for  all  the 
pains  of  our  '  bad  quarters  of  hours  '  or  give  the  training 
needed  to  regenerate  the  Educator  of  the  Future'  (p.  14). 
This  is  what  Ridding  exhorts  us  not  to  believe.  Did  anybody 
in  his  senses  ever  believe  it?  And  here  is  a  specimen  of  the 
truths  of  which  he  makes  himself  the  champion  and  assumes 
that  his  adversaries  deny.  '  The  evils  expected  to  be  remedied 
will  not  be  remedied.     Differences  will  remain  between  good 

1  •  Examination  in  Theory  v.  Normal  Schools  as  the  Training  for 
Teachers.'  A  Letter  to  Oscar  Browning,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  King's  College, 
Cambridge,  by  the  Rev.  George  Ridding,  D.D.,  Headmaster  of  Winchester 
College.     Winchester,  1882. 


Letter  to  Mac  Car  thy  371 

and  bad  teachers,  clever  and  dull  ones  ;  differences  in  vitality, 
vivacity,  sympathy,  resource ;  differences  in  temper  and 
patience  ;  differences  in  knowledge.'  Why  doesn't  he  go  on — ■ 
All  your  vaunted  theory  will  never  seriously  affect  the  multipli- 
cation table,  and  in  spite  of  all  your  assertions  I  maintain  that 
read  what  books  you  may  there  will  siill  be  more  daylight  in 
June  than  in  December." 


Letter  to  Mr  MacCarthy  on   Training  Teachers 

"15  April,  '82.  I  have  written  a  letter  to  MacCarthy  in 
which  I  maintain  that  not  only  do  we  want  professors  of 
education,  but  that  the  field  of  labour  is  so  great  that  it  should 
be  divided  among  several  labourers.  '  First  we  want  men  of 
insight  to  examine  into  the  true  theory  of  education  —  that  is, 
as  I  understand  it,  to  inquire  what  human  beings  ought  to 
become  and  how  much  of  this  may  be  effected  by  educa- 
tion. .  .  .  Next  we  want  men  who  will  make  it  their  business 
to  find  out  what  course  education  is  taking  on  the  Continent 
and  in  the  United  States  (General  Bureau  of  Education  —  some 
account  of  it).  Some  people  say,  What  matters  to  us  the 
experience  of  the  Continent  or  the  United  States?  Their 
system  of  education  may  be  good  for  the  Germans  or  the 
Yankees,  but  the  conditions  of  life  are  different  abroad,  so 
they  want  a  different  system.  But  in  point  of  fact  the  con- 
ditions of  life  are  different  here  to  what  they  were  when  our 
present  system  of  education  took  its  present  shape.  When  I 
went  to  Cambridge  30  years  ago  the  classical  and  mathematical 
triposes  were  supreme.  Since  then  everything  has  been  upset, 
including  these  triposes  themselves,  by  the  incursions  of  new 
knowledge.  What  has  happened  in  superior  education  will 
happen  in  school  education  too.  Frederic  Harrison  has  been 
shewing  in  the  current  number  of  the  Fortnightly  Revieiv  how 
all  the  conditions  of  hfe  have  changed  more  in  the  last  hundred 


2i"]2  R.  H.   Quick 

years"  than  in  a  thousand  years  previously.  In  times  of  changes 
like  these  we  need  men  with  brains  and  knowledge  to  examine 
what  changes  are  going  on  and  to  shew  how  education  may  be 
adapted  to  meet  these  changes.  If  we  will  not  observe  the 
course  of  things  in  other  countries  we  shall  have  to  follow  up 
in  the  rear  and  learn  in  the  most  expensive  way  possible — ■ 
by  our  blundering. 

"  '  But  besides  needing  men  to  think  and  men  to  turn  the 
experience  of  other  nations  to  our  profit,  we  want  men  to  shew 
us  how  best  to  do  what  we  are  now  trying  to  do.  Young  teachers 
may  have  an  immense  deal  done  for  them  by  any  skilful 
teacher  who  will  take  pains  with  them  at  starting.  Dr  Ridding 
thinks  that  lectures  are  no  substitute  for  experience,  except  in 
the  case  of  non-university  men  or  feeble  university  men.  / 
don't  think  they  are  a  substitute  for  experience  in  any  case 
whatever.  But  an  instructor  of  teachers  may  shew  them  how 
they  may  profit  by  their  experience.  With  his  advice  they 
may  get  to  observe  properly  and  to  be  conscious  of  their  own 
defects.  It  is  one  of  the  greatest  mistakes  in  the  world  to 
suppose  that  all  practice  makes  perfect ;  it  is  only  right 
practice  that  does  this ;  wrong  practice  may  be  worse  than 
none.  The  young  teacher's  danger  is  lest  he  should  settle 
down  into  a  groove  of  wrong  practice  which  will  soon  make 
his  work  easy  to  him,  but  will  prevent  his  improving.  A 
capable  man  put  in  charge  of  young  teachers,  acquainting  him- 
self with  their  objects  and  efforts,  and  at  times  seeing  them 
teach  may  do  an  immense  deal  for  them.'  So  far  I  have 
quoted  my  letter  to  MacCarthy.  I  think  a  professor  or  in- 
structor of  teachers,  normal  master  or  whatever  you  choose  to 
call  him,  might  undertake  to  instruct  a  number  of  young  men 
and  women  teachers.  He  should  have  free  access  to  the  class- 
rooms in  which  they  teach  and  should  visit  their  rooms  and  be 
present  at  an  actual  lesson  as  often  as  possible.  He  should 
find  out  by  private  questioning  what  the  teacher  is  trying  to 
do.     He    should    (of    course    in    private)    point    out   where 


Objections  refuted  373 

imj)rovement  is  needed.  He  should  get  for  his  students*  op- 
portunities of  seeing  good  teaching.  He  should  sometimes 
lecture  to  them,  at  others  have  a  discussion  class  to  which  the 
students  should  bring  short  papers  to  read  on  some  set  subject, 
and  these  papers  should  be  criticized  by  fellow-students  and 
the  professor." 

A  Proposed  Chair  of  Education  in  Mason   Coltege, 
Birmingham 

"13  May,  '82.  Mr  G.  Dixon  has  forwarded  me  objections 
to  the  establishment  of  a  Chair  of  Education  in  the  Mason 
Science  College,  advanced  by  some  of  the  masters  of  secondary 
schools.  Objection  i  is  that  there  is  no  agreement  about 
principles,  so  whatever  the  professor  taught  would  be  con- 
demned by  some  acting  teacher.  No.  2,  the  new  professor 
would  be  a  '  theorist,'  not  a  practical  man  or  experienced 
schoolmaster.  No.  3,  the  professor  would  want  to  attend 
classes  in  secondary  schools,  and  this  the  headmaster  would 
not  like,  as  it  would  interfere  with  order  and  discipline. 

"  Now  all  this  comes  to  a  cry  from  established  school- 
masters, '  Let  us  alone  1 '  There  is  no  agreement  among 
schoolmasters  :  this  is  true  enough,  and  what  is  the  inference  to 
be  drawn  from  it?  Not  surely  that  one  principle  is  as  good  as 
another,  and  that  each  man  should  go  his  own  way  without 
question. 

"  There  was  a  time  when  there  was  less  diversity  of  opinion 
than  now.  '  Education,'  said  Dr  Johnson,  '  is  as  well  known 
and  has  long  been  as  well  known  as  ever  it  can  be.'  When 
one  thinks  of  these  words  one  sees  the  tremendous  change 
that  has  come  to  pass  since  then.  Chaos  has  come  again,  or 
rather  what  was  taken  for  solid  rock  has  proved  mere  quick- 
sand, and  it  is  now  an  open  question  with  English  teachers 
what  are  educational  principles,  or  whether  such  principles  can 
exist.     But  this  chaos  must  be  very  injurious  to  their  pupils. 


374  ^-  J^-   Q7u'c/c 

Principles  of  education,  1  suppose,  are  truths  of  human  nature 
which  point  to  particular  jjractices  in  education.  If  we  can 
get  principles  established  they  will  be  of  immense  value  to  us. 
There  are  no  doubt  a  great  many  teachers  who  have  sham 
principles  or  no  principles  at  all,  and  if  the  professor  can  lay 
down  true  principles  these  will,  of  course,  be  rejected  by 
masters  who  have  got  into  a  groove  of  error.  But  if  nobody  is 
to  teach  truth  till  everyone  is  prepared  to  welcome  it,  there  is 
small  chance  of  improvement  in  any  department  of  art  or 
science.  But  the  professor  may  teach  error.  No  doubt  he 
may.  Some  physical  sciences  have  an  established  body  of 
truths  which  every  professor  knows  and  teaches.  This  is  not 
so  in  education,  but  in  this  respect  education  does  not  stand 
alone.  Even  in  medicine,  though  it  rests  on  the  physical 
sciences,  very  little  is  established  beyond  dispute.  The  theory 
and  practice  of  the  doctors  of  to-day  differ  very  widely  indeed 
from  those  of  the  doctors  70  or  80  years  ago.  Possibly  as 
the  doctors  now  think  their  predecessors  were  in  error,  so  the 
doctors  of  the  future  may  think  our  doctors  in  error.  But 
nobody  contends  that  each  practitioner  should  dose  his  patients 
in  his  own  way  because  the  heads  of  the  profession  may  be  in 
error.  What  is  felt  is  that  every  doctor  is  bound  to  know  the 
btst  that  is  already  known  or  at  least  thought,  and  that  if  the 
country  practitioner  makes  mistakes  through  following  the 
teaching  of  men  like  Jenner  and  Gull,  he  would  make  fifty 
times  worse  mistakes  if  he  refused  to  learn  from  them  and  set 
about  inventing  his  own  system  or  dosed  away  without  system 
of  any  kind.  Of  course  if  the  professor  of  education  is  a 
blockhead  and  does  not  know  or  does  not  teach  what  is  held 
by  the  best  authorities,  he  may  do  simply  harm,  but  this  is  true 
of  professors  on  every  subject.  But  the  scheme  of  the  pro- 
fessorship supposes  the  professor  to  be  an  able  man,  who  has 
made  a  thorough  study  of  such  thought  about  education  as  the 
human  race  has  already  accumulated,  and  besides  has  a  know- 
ledge of  the  best  practice  both  in  this  country  and  the  other 


Objections  refitted  375 

main  countries  of  Europe.  It  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
throwing  up  all  hopes  of  improvement  to  say  that  such  a  man 
can  do  nothing  to  save  teachers  from  false  principles  or  no 
principles,  and  to  establish  true  principles  which  may  by 
degrees  bring  the  right  order  into  our  present  chaos. 

"  To  consider  the  second  objection,  that  the  professor  will  be 
a  '  theorist.'  The  general  notion,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able 
to  discover  it,  is  this  :  teaching  is  an  art ;  an  art  can  be  learnt 
only  by  practice,  so  the  theorist,  the  person  who  talks  about 
the  art  without  perhaps  being  able  to  do  anything,  is  worse 
than  useless.  In  reply  to  this,  I  should  point  out  that  bearing 
on  every  art  there  are  two  kinds  of  knowledge  :  First,  there  is 
the  knowledge  of  the  principles  which  underlie  the  art. 
Secondly,  there  is  the  knowledge  of  the  best  methods  of 
practice.  These  two  kinds  of  knowledge  should  be  very  care- 
fully distinguished.  When  people  talk  about  theory  they 
generally  mean  the  knowledge  of  underlying  principles,  though 
sometimes  they  confuse  with  this  another  meaning  of  the 
word,  according  to  which  theory  is  merely  hypothesis  or  con- 
jectural explanation  of  phenomena.  But  taking  theory  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  it  is  obvious  that  when  an  art  is 
quite  settled,  theory  may  give  little  practical  advantage  to 
those  engaged  in  it:  ^.^.  nobody  would  play  the  violin  better 
for  knowing  the  theory  of  harmonics,  or  would  swim  or  row 
better  for  having  made  a  study  of  the  laws  of  fluid  pressure. 
But  the  art  of  teaching  is  not  so  simple  or  so  settled.  The 
practice  of  schoolmasters  differs  very  widely  indeed,  and  in 
determining  between  different  possible  modes  of  action  an 
appeal  to  principles  may  enable  us  to  determine  the  right 
practice.  I  am  absolutely  certain  that  if  English  teachers  had 
ever  thought  of  principles  many  school  books  which  have 
had  or  have  a  great  vogue  would  never  have  been  tolerated 
in  any  school-room.  So  the  professor  must  be  a  theorist  in 
this  sense  that  he  has  studied  principles  and  knows  how  far 
the  principles  of  school  teaching  have  been  settled  by  the 
great  thinkers. 


T^yS  R.  H.  Quick 

"  Rut  the  knowledge  given  by  the  professor  would  not  be 
knowledge  of  principles  only.  He  would  have  made  a  study 
of  the  best  methods  of  practice.  To  teach  an  art  something 
very  different  is  required  from  skill  in  practising  the  art.  We 
have  all  great  skill  in  speaking  English,  but  if  we  were  suddenly 
set  to  teach  a  foreigner,  we  should  not  know  how  to  go  to 
work.  We  do  not  know  how  we  learnt,  and  so  we  cannot  direct 
the  learning  of  others.  In  other  things  when  we  do  remember 
how  we  were  taught,  we  do  our  best  to  put  the  pupil  through  a 
similar  course.  J>ut  this  remembrance,  though  much  better 
than  nothing,  is  not  enough  to  set  the  young  teacher  on  the 
best  practice  for  him.  It  is  different  in  two  ways  :  First,  it  is 
a  remembrance  of  one  way  only,  and  that  perhaps  not  the  best. 
Secondly,  it  is  a  very  imperfect  remembrance  ;  for  in  learning 
an  art,  say  riding  or  drawing,  our  mind  is  engaged  in  under- 
standing and  carrying  out  the  directions  of  the  master,  and  we 
do  not  observe  the  sequence  of  those  directions,  and  of  course 
do  not  remember  it.  And  yet  everything  depends  on  the 
sequence.  The  young  teacher  then  requires  to  be  instructed 
by  someone  who  has  thoroughly  studied  the  method  in  which 
the  exercises  should  be  conducted  and  the  order  in  which  they 
should  come.  Experienced  and  skilful  teachers  often  know 
this  by  a  kind  of  habit  which  has  become  their  second  nature, 
but  they  may  not  have  any  notion  how  to  direct  others  in  the 
art.  The  objections  assume  that  the  professor  would  not  be 
an  experienced  teacher.  I  think  he  should  have  had  experi- 
ence in  the  school-room,  but  experience  is  not  the  only  thing 
wanted.  Besides  being  able  to  practise  the  art  himself,  he 
must  know  how  to  direct  the  practice  of  others." 

Psychology  and  Training  of  Teachers 

"  2  April,  '84.  Courthope  l>owen  and  others  (myself 
among  them),  are  too  apt  to  say,  *  You  must  thoroughly  under- 
stand the  being  on  whom  you  are  to  act  and  then  your  work 


Psychology  2,11 

will  have  a  scientific  character.'  To  this  it  may  be  fairly 
answered,  We  cannot  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge  under- 
stand scientifically  the  being  we  have  to  act  on.  The  doctors 
even  do  not  know  much  about  what  goes  on  in  his  body, 
though  as  they  can  cut  him  up  after  death  and  examine  his 
body  they  know  what  the  body  is.  We  teachers  know  much 
less  about  what  goes  on  in  his  mind  and  as  we  have  no  chance 
of  post-mortems  we  can't  find  out  what  his  mind  is.  So  our 
only  approach  to  science  must  be  by  way  of  experiment,  and 
as  yet  very  little  has  been  satisfactorily  settled.  By  all  means 
let  us  go  on  observing  and  experimenting,  but  young  teachers 
cannot  be  allowed  to  try  fresh  experiments.  By  reading  books 
such  as  Bain's  Education  as  a  Science  I  can't  fancy  any 
teacher  would  be  much  the  better.  A  good  book  on  the  sub- 
ject (Sully's  Psychology,  just  out,  looks  to  me  promising) 
would  very  much  alter  a  teacher's  attitude  of  mind  with  refer- 
ence to  his  work,  that  is,  in  his  thinking  hours.  When  he  is 
at  work  in  the  school-room  he  would  very  likely  forget  all 
about  psychology.  From  whatever  cause  (ignorance  most 
likely)  I  have  got  little  light  from  psychology  on  actual 
teaching." 

Cockiness  of  the  Inexperienced 

"'A  poor  thing,  but  my  own,'  may  be  a  wise  feeling  when 
we  have  done  our  best  and  the  thing  cannot  be  improved,  but 
it  is  mischievous  if  we  take  a  pride  in  things  simply  as  ours 
when  we  ought  to  change  them  or  at  least  try  to  improve  them. 

"  My  little  daughter,  who  is  just  two  years  old,  seems  to 
have  a  touch  of  the  latter  feeling  already.  When  her  mother 
shows  her  how  to  hold  something  she  will  take  it  sometimes 
another  way  and  say,  '/do  it  dis  way.'  One  laughs  at  this  in 
a  child,  but  it  is  no  laughing  matter  in  a  man.  Yet  young 
teachers  don't  seem  to  have  the  least  suspicion  that  their  way 
is  not  quite  so  likely  to  be  the  right  way  as  the  way  recom- 


SjS  R.  H.  Quick 

mended  by  those  who  have  been  trying  to  find  the  right  way 
for  many  years. 

"  I  was  lately  in  the  company  of  a  set  of  young  masters,  very 
good  fellows,  who  took  an  interest  in  their  work,  but  it  did  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  they  could  possibly  have 
anything  to  learn  about  it.  I  mentioned  a  good  way  of  setting 
'  lines '  so  as  to  avoid  injuring  the  handwriting,  but  not  one 
of  them  would  listen  more  than  civility  required.  Like  Dora 
each  said,  '  I  do  it  this  way,'  and  didn't  seem  to  think  that  any 
improvement  was  desirable  or  even  possible." 

The  Historical  Theory  of  Education 

"6  Aug.  '85.  In  the  preface  to  Polack's  Brosamen  (a 
German  schoolmaster's  Reminiscences,  just  sent  me  by  Mr 
Hope  Moncrieff)  I  read  :  — 

" '  Was  du  ererbt  von  deinen  Vatern  hast 
Erwirb  es,  um  as  zu  besitzen  !  ' 

"  '  Die  geistige  Erbschaft  tritt  sich  also  schwerer  an  als  die 
klingende.  Und  doch  beruht  auf  diesem  Erbprozess  die 
Zukunft  der  Menschheit.  Verschmahen  wir  dies  Erbe,  und 
will  jeder  von  vorn  anfangen,  dann  werden  wir  iiber  Adams 
Kultur  nicht  weit  hinauskommen.  Die  menschliche  Kultur  ist 
ein  historisches  Produkt.  Ihr  stetiges  Wachstum  liegt  in  der 
treuen  Verwertung  des  geistigen  Erbes  unserer  Vorfahren.'  ^ 

"  This  is  all  sensible,  but  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  to  start 
afresh,  whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  is  absolutely  impossible.     If 

'  What  from  thy  fathers  thou  inheritest 
Win  for  thyself  to  make  it  truly  thine.' 
'  Intellectual  property,  if  we  are  to  believe  Goethe,  cannot  be  handed 
down  so  easily  as  pounds,  shillings  and  pence.  And  yet  on  this  trans- 
mission depends  the  future  of  the  human  race.  If  we  despise  this  legacy 
and  determine  each  of  us  to  make  a  fresh  start,  we  shall  not  get  much 
beyond  Adam's  stage  of  civilization.  Civilization  is  an  historical  product. 
It  depends  for  steady  growth  on  the  faithful  employment  of  the  intellectual 
patrimony  bequeathed  to  us  by  our  ancestors.' 


The  claims  of  tradition  379 

we  go  on  in  the  happy-go-lucky  fashion  of  Eilghsh  school- 
masters, we  inherit  and  pass  on  a  number  of  practices  which 
have  often  owed  their  origin  to  mere  accident  and  many  of 
which  fresh  circumstances  have  rendered  inexpedient :  e.g.  when 
no  literature  was  studied  and-  little  literature  existed  save  that 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  it  may  have  been  well  to  spend  much  of  a 
boy's  early  years  over  abnormal  inflections  of  (ireek  nouns  and 
verbs,  but  when  the  study  of  other  things  virtually  supplanted 
in  many  cases  the  study  of  Greek  for  all  but  a  few  scholars, 
the  old  practice  of  grinding  away  at  abnormal  Greek  inflections 
became  a  tradition  that  could  give  no  rational  account  of  itself. 
This  is  a  gross  case,  but  it  shows  the  sort  of  thing  I  mean. 
Well,  then,  we  must  receive  an  Erbschaft.  Shall  we  take  to  it 
intelligently  or  unintelligently?  Most  English  schoolmasters 
answer  by  their  deeds  if  not  by  their  words,  '  Unintelligently ;  if 
once  you  begin  to  examine  into  the  meaning  and  object  of 
what  you  do,  you  get  theoretical  and  moony  ;  you  are  tempted 
to  try  experiments  and  are  sure  to  make  mistakes.  Just  do 
what  others  have  done  before  you.  They  have  got  on  well 
enough,  and  you  may  be  satisfied  to  do  as  well  as  they  did.' 
But  this  recommendation  cannot  now  be  so  easily  carried  out, 
for  now  the  supremacy  of  the  classics  has  passed  away  the 
tradition  of  the  classical  teachers  cannot  be  carried  on  in  its 
entirety.  So  we  want  someone  to  guide  young  teachers.  It  is 
true  they  cannot  well  criticize  to  much  purpose  till  they  have 
had  some  experience,  and  unfortunately  they  generally  get  so 
overworked  at  first  that  they  have  no  time  to  look  at  anything 
till  use  and  wont  has  blinded  their  eyes.  We  shall  ne^er  get 
good  teachers  till  their  work  is  made  light  at  first  and  they 
carry  it  on  under  intelligent  supervision." 

The  Products  of  Untrained  Teachers 

"22.8.85.     -^   have  just  spent  half-an-hour  in  examining 
young  P.,  a  lad  of  fourteen,  whom  I  examined  two  years  ago. 


38o  R.  H.  Quick 

He  has  been  over  two  years  at  the  Grammar-school.  In 
Latin  he  had  done  parts  of  Caesar,  book  i.,  but  he  could 
not  find  anything  he  could  construe  to  me  when  I  handed  him 
the  book.  I  gave  him  '  In  Britannia  pericula  dominorum  non 
sunt  tanta  quanta  in  Hibernia.'  This  completely  stumped  him. 
He  could  not  make  out  doiiiitwfinn,  and  said  it  could  be  no 
part  of  dominiis.  In  arithmetic  he  had  been  '  up  to  practice ' 
and  had  done  all  practice  and  decimals,  and  last  quarter  he 
came  out  second  in  his  division.  But  when  I  tried  him  he 
asserted  ^0.25  to  be  ;^25  and  then  25^-.  I  asked  him  to  give 
me  a  multiple  of  10  and  he  answered  2,  and  then  declared  that 
10  had  no  multiple.  I  wrote  down  'y\  and  |-,  which  is  the 
greater?'  After  long  hesitation,  he  decided  f.  *  How  much 
greater?'  I  asked.  This  made  him  doubt  whether  his  answer 
was  right,  so  he  corrected  himself  to  y\. 

"  The  explanation  of  this  fiasco  is  simple.  A  young  Oxford 
man  is  good  at  gymnastics  ;  he  is  therefore  engaged  here  as 
gymnasiarch,  but  by  the  terms  of  the  agreement  he  has  also  to 
take  some  of  the  mathematics.  Nobody  seems  to  have  asked 
if  he  knew  anything,  and  nobody  supposed  that  he  had  any 
preparation  for  teaching.  In  these  circumstances  he  is  handed 
over  a  number  of  boys  to  do  what  he  likes  with.  Apparently 
there  has  never  been  any  attempt  made  to  give  the  boys  any 
arithmetical  conception  or  to  see  if  they  have  any." 

A  Letter  to  S.  H.  Butcher 

"29.  I.  86.  I  am  just  answering  a  letter  of  Prof.  S.  H, 
Butcher.  I  say  that  for  training  three  things  are  needed.  The 
student  teacher  should 

"  I.  See  good  teaching  and  school  management.  (Even 
seeing  a  variety  of  poor  teaching  and  management  would  be 
useful.) 

"  2.  Do  some  teaching  himself  under  the  direction  and 
supervision  of  a  good  instructor. 


I 


Teaching  like  other  arts  381 

"  3.  Study  books  on  education  and  teaching,  not  necessarily 
for  examination,  but  for  the  hght  they  may  throw  on  his  work. 

"  N.B.  He  must  have  time  for  study  and  observation,  so  he 
can't  earn  anythmg." 

A  Sermon  on  a  Text  from  De   Quincey 

"  '  Without  an  art,  without  some  simple  system  of  rules, 
gathered  from  experience  of  such  contingencies  as  are  most 
likely  to  mislead  the  practice  when  left  to  its  own  guidance,  no 
act  of  man  nor  effort  accomplishes  its  purposes  in  perfection.' 
.  ,  .  '  A  hmited  process  submits  readily  to  the  limits  of  a 
technical  system  ;  but  a  process  so  unlimited  as  the  inter- 
change of  thought  seems  to  reject  them.' — De  Quincey  on 
Conversation. 

"  The  art  of  teaching  is,  as  I  believe,  an  art  which  has  this 
in  common  with  most  others,  that  he  who  would  learn  it  can- 
not learn  it  from  rules,  and  at  the  same  time  cannot  learn  it 
in  advantageous  conditions  without  rules.  Of  course  it  is  no 
small  matter  that  can  be  reduced  to  a  technical  system. 
There  are  some  games  so  simple  that  with  a  little  good  instruc- 
tion anyone  may  become  a  proficient.  Do  this  and  do  that 
and  results  so  and  so  must  follow.  But  games  of  this  kind 
are  very  poor  things.  All  the  higher  games  are  found  to  have 
a  certain  mechanical  part  for  which  rules  and  coaching  are 
useful,  if  not  essential,  but  the  higher  developments  are  alto- 
gether above  rule.  Yes,  but  these  higher  developments,  though 
not  reducible  to  rule  like  the  mechanical  part,  may  be  impeded 
by  faults  of  mechanism  that  have  come  from  neglect  of  rule. 

"  W.  P.  S.,  with  whom  I  have  been  staying,  says  that 
training  would  get  teachers  into  a  groove,  and  that  the  man 
who  has  to  find  his  own  way  of  doing  things  finds  the  best  way 
for  him.  If  this  is  so,  teaching  is  the  only  art  in  which  no 
advance  is  possible,  and  accumulated  experience  is  valueless. 
I  do  not  know  why  the  originality  of  the  teacher  should  be 


382  R.  //.  Quick 

considered  either  more  precious  or  more  delicate  than  the 
originaUty  of  those  who  practise  other  arts.  A  groove  is,  I  take 
it,  a  fixed  course  of  procedure.  Now  in  the  early  stages  of  an 
art,  when  the  mechanical  part  is  being  acquired,  we  want  a 
certain  fixed  course,  and  if  we  leave  the  learner  alone  he  will 
to  a  certainty  get  into  a  fixed  course  or  groove,  and  that  a  bad 
one.  Suppose  we  find  that  a  young  person  has  a  great  talent 
for  music.  Do  we  give  him  a  musical  instrument  and  keep 
instruction  from  him  for  fear  of  spoiling  his  originality  and 
getting  him  into  a  groove?  By  no  means.  Even  the  greatest 
geniuses  need  instruction  from  masters  who  will  give  them  the 
rules  drawn  from  the  experience  of  many  generations.  It  is 
quite  true  that  the  tradition  may  have  got  to  some  extent 
divorced  from  fact,  and  the  genius  may  in  the  end  have  to 
depart  from  it.  The  Pre-Raphaelite  movement  was  a  protest 
against  wrong  tradition.  But  the  P.-R.  brothers  had  to  walk 
for  a  time  in  the  traditional  road,  and  so  must  all  beginners. 
The  notion  that  the  young  teacher  alone  should  learn  nothing 
from  tradition  seems  to  me  absurd.  He  cannot  at  first  find  his 
own  way,  so  he  must  fall  back  on  the  very  defective  tradition 
of  what  he  remembers  when  he  was  a  boy.  A  really  able  man 
with  no  guidance  but  this  may  in  the  end  make  a  very  good 
teacher,  but  even  he  will  probably  never  be  so  good  as  he 
might  have  been  with  more  advantages.  I  know  a  man  who 
never  learnt  the  piano,  but  by  natural  ability  and  great  industry 
has  got  to  play  classical  music.  Musicians  who  watch  his 
fingering  '  stare  and  gasp,'  and  consider  the  way  in  which  he 
masters  the  difficulties  that  arise  from  his  ignorance  of  the 
proper  method  truly  admirable,  but  after  all  these  difficulties 
would  never  have  existed  if  he  had  had  proper  instruction, 
and  thus  the  same  amount  of  ability  and  energy  would  have 
made  him  a  fiir  better  player  than  he  can  now  by  any  possi- 
bility become. 

"  '  In  my  own  early  years  having  been  formed  by  nature  too 
exclusively  and    morbidly    for    solitary    thinking,    I    observed 


Teaching  like  other  arts  383 

nothing.  Seeming  to  have  eyes,  in  reaUty  I  saw  nothing.  But 
it  is  a  matter  of  no  very  uncommon  experience  that,  whilst  the 
mere  observers  never  become  meditators,  the  mere  meditators, 
on  the  other  hand,  may  finally  ripen  into  close  observers. 
Strength  of  thinking,  through  long  years,  upon  innumerable 
themes,  will  have  the  effect  of  disclosing  a  vast  variety  of 
questions,  to  which  it  soon  becomes  apparent  that  answers  are 
lurking  up  and  down  the  whole  field  of  daily  experience,  and 
thus  an  internal  experience  which  was  slighted  in  youth, 
because  it  was  a  dark  cipher  that  could  be  read  into  no  mean- 
ing, a  key  that  answered  to  no  lock,  gradually  becomes 
interesting  as  it  is  found  to  yield  one  solution  after  another  to 
problems  that  have  independently  matured  in  the  mind.' —  De 
Quincey. 

"  This  bears  on  a  most  interesting  question,  What  are  the 
conditions  necessary  to  render  experience  instructive?  People 
say,  '  Turn  your  young  master  into  the  schoolroom  and 
experience  will  teach  him.'  Will  teach  him  what  ?  It  will 
certainly  teach  him  to  get  through  his  work  somehow ;  but  it 
will  not  teach  him  the  best  way,  and  moreover  he  will 
have  no  eye  for  some  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  his  experi- 
ence puts  before  him.  Most  people  think  experience  will  open 
a  man's  eyes.  It  will  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  Its  tendency  is 
rather  to  close  the  eyes  of  the  mind  than  to  open  them. 
Experience  often  forces  us  into  a  groove  —  the  direction  of  least 
resistance  ;  and  when  we  are  accustomed  to  that  we  go  along 
bhndly.  It  is,  as  De  Quincey  says,  thinking  that  opens  our 
eyes,  and  the  pressure  of  school  work  gives  no  spare  time  or 
energy  for  thought.  A  prehminary  survey  of  the  field,  given 
in  lectures  or  books,  might  perhaps  give  the  young  master  a 
notion  of  the  things  he  should  observe.  'But  this  would  make 
him  too  theoretical.'  There  must  be  some  meaning  in  this 
common  cry.  I  think  it  is  supposed  that  having  been  taught 
a  theory  he  would  not  try  to  learn  from  facts.  But  instead  of 
having   learnt  'a  theory,'  he  may  simply  have  had  his  mind 


384  ^-  H.  Quick 

opened  to  investigate  the  bearing  of  facts.  If  he  has  simply 
got  some  '  views '  from  his  instructors,  his  learning  has  been  a 
failure  ;  but  if  he  has  learned  to  think  and  has  had  pointed 
out  to  him  what  he  should  think  about,  his  learning  may  have 
started  him  in  the  path  of  endless  improvement.  At  the  same 
time  I  am  not  quite  certain  about  such  previous  instruction. 
Previous  to  experience  much  of  it  would  be  uninteresting,  if 
not  unintelligible." 

The  Seamy  Side  of  Training 

"  7  Dec.  '86.  Yesterday  morning  I  addressed  the  students, 
sixteen  in  number,  with  Miss  Hughes  and  Miss  Freeman, 
at  the  Cambridge  Training  College,  now  at  Newnham  Crofts. 

"  Miss  Hughes  told  of  an  instance  of  wrong  kind  of  train- 
ing. A  trained  mistress  treated  some  small  fault  very  harshly 
and  when  taken  to  task  by  the  headmistress  said  the  offence 
came  under  '  case  so  and  so,'  and  this  she  had  dealt  with  as 
directed." 

A  Criticism  Lesson 

"  28  March,  '87.  To-day  I  was  at  the  Maria  Grey  Train- 
ing School,  I,  Fitzroy  Square.  The  lessons  (half-hour)  had 
been  carefully  prepared  and  the  notes  of  the  one  I  saw  (on 
climate)  were  very  good  in  most  ways,  but  had  far  too  much  in 
them  for  a  single  lesson.  The  second  was  on  multiplication  of 
fractions.  The  teacher  (Miss  Priestley)  wrote  fast  and  beauti- 
fully on  the  blackboard  (a  great  accomplishment  in  a  teacher). 
Her  weakness  was  that  little  was  got  out  of  the  girls.  She  also 
attempted  far  too  much.  I  did  not  think  the  criticism  of  Miss 
W.  and  Canon  1).  all  that  I  should  have  expected.  Miss  P. 
did  not  attempt  to  ascertain  what  the  class  already  knew,  and 
she  accepted  words  such  as  numerator  and  denominator  with- 
out asking  their  meaning." 


Natiiix  and  Nurture  38 5 


^  The  ciinniii'  d'  V 

"12,  I.  90.  There  is  an  article  in  last  night's  Globe  headed 
'The  Fisher's  Cunning.'  It  tells  a  story  of  a  man  who  was 
considered  a  tolerable  fisherman  with  the  fly,  but  when  he 
went  out  fishing  with  an  old  poacher  he  found  the  poacher 
caught  fish  after  fish,  when  he  could  not  get  a  rise.  It  was  in 
vain  the  poacher  tried  to  teach  him.  Beyond  a  certain  point 
the  teaching  was  no  good,  and  the  poacher  said  at  last,  '  Ah, 
Sir,  I  canna  tell  ye  ony  mair  —  ye  ha'  na'  got  the  cunnin'  o'  't.' 
In  most  things,  especially  in  teaching,  where  heart  and  mind 
have  to  control  and  influence  heart  and  mind,  there  will  be 
some  who  have  the  cunning  of  it  and  some  who  have  not. 
On  what  does  the  difference  depend  ?  In  the  poacher's  case 
we  have  the  keenest  delight  in  the  pursuit,  the  keenest  desire 
for  excellence,  traditional  knowledge  probably,  and  under  these 
conditions  years  and  years  of  practice.  How  far  must  natural 
talent  come  in?  If  the  poacher  had  in  early  life  shown  no 
aptitude  for  the  business  he  would  probably  have  given  it  up  ; 
but  natural  aptitude  brings  no  amateur  up  to  the  standard  of  a 
good  professional ;  and  when  circumstances  lead  a  man  into  a 
pursuit  as  a  professional,  whether  it  be  billiards  or  racquets  or 
poaching,  he  does  not  often  fail  for  want  of  natural  aptitude. 

"  Why  is  the  standard  of  excellence  so  low  among  even  pro- 
fessional teachers  ?  It  is,  I  think,  because  they  will  not  take 
pains  enough.  Except  practice  they  are  without  the  qualifica- 
tions which  lead  to  the  poacher's  excellence,  intense  delight  in 
the  occupation,  intense  desire  for  success  in  it.  When  these 
things  are  absent,  practice  more  often  prevents  excellence  than 
leads  to  it.  Excellence,  I  think,  is  usually  obtainable  by  people 
with  fair  natural  gifts  who  devote  themselves  for  years  to  an 
earnest  effort  to  excel.  But  there  is  an  excellence  beyond  this 
which  wants  an  additional  element,  viz.  genius.  No  amount 
of  effort  would   make  a  man  an  orator   like  Bright,   nor   an 

2C 


386  R.  H.  Quick 

animal  painter  like  Landseer.  The  element  of  genius  we  may 
leave  out  of  account.  It  is  very  rare  and  seems  to  set  ordinary 
rules  at  defiance." 

Mr  C.  S.  Roitndell  on  the  Cambridge  Teachers^  Examination 

"  Mr  Sully,  in  his  Outlines  of  Psychology,  postulates  for 
teachers  practice  and  theory ;  the  College  of  Preceptors  insists 
on  theory,  leaving  training  to  a  more  convenient  season  ;  Mr 
C.  S.  Roundell  exalts  practice,  and  pooh-poohs  theory  alto- 
gether. At  a  prize  distribution  of  the  College  of  Preceptors, 
he  is  reported  to  have  said  :  '  What  we  require  in  the  method 
of  testing  the  efficiency  of  teachers  is  not  so  much  the  theory 
or  science  of  education  as  the  practical  knowledge  of  the  way 
to  go  to  work  properly  in  handling  classes.  ...  I  will  take  the 
first  question  in  each  of  the  first  two  papers  of  the  Cambridge 
Syndicate.  '  Enumerate  the  chief  conditions,  psychological  and 
physiological,  of  retentiveness.'  I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me 
answer  the  question  if  you  gave  me  a  week  in  which  to  do  it, 
and  if  I  could  I  do  not  see  that  either  I  or  anyone  would  be 
a  bit  the  better  for  it.  They  go  on  to  say,  'What  do  you 
understand  by  cramming?'  We  all  know  what  we  understand 
by  cramming,  and  I  cannot  see  the  object  of  putting  such  a 
question  as  that.  I  take  this  as  a  sample  of  the  mischief  of 
dwelling  so  much  upon  these  metaphysics,  these  psychological 
and  physiological  difficulties,  instead  of  going  to  the  backbone 
of  the  whole  thing,  the  proper  knowledge  of  the  handling  of 
classes.' 

"  As  it  is  the  idea  in  the  examiners'  minds  that  Mr  Roundell 
feels  bound  to  criticise,  we  should  inquire  what  that  idea  is. 
They  think  perhajis  that  they  must  examine  in  the  j^rescribed 
subject  and  in  no  other.  Even  if  an  examination  in  the  theory 
or  science  of  education  is  as  useless  as  Mr  Roundell  supposes, 
it  is  surely  hard  on  the  examiners  to  find  fault  with  them  for 
setting  questions  in  it  when  the  University  has  engaged  them  to 


Training  of  Inspectors  38 7 

do  so.  ^^'hat  would  Mr  Roundell  have  them  ask?  He  selects 
two  questions  and  objects  to  one  on  the  ground  that  he  could 
not  answer  it,  and  to  the  other  on  the  ground  that  he  could." 

Training  of  H.  M.  Inspectors 

"  22.  2.  79.  Last  night  Mr  Rathbone,  the  member  for 
Liverpool,  brought  forward  a  motion  on  the  subject  of  inspec- 
tors. He  said  inspectors  now-a-days  had  no  training  for  their 
calling,  and  he  proposed  that  they  should  serve  a  kind  of 
apprenticeship  under  senior  inspectors.  They  might  be  ap- 
pointed a  year  or  two  before  they  would  be  required  to  inspect 
independently,  and  by  seeing  inspection  they  might  get  to 
know  the  sort  of  standard  adopted  and  the  best  modes  of 
inspection.  Several  speakers,  Mr  Forster  among  them,  urged 
the  necessity  of  some  training  of  inspectors.  Then  happened 
one  of  those  marvellous  incidents  which  prove  Goethe's  asser- 
tion :  '  Der  Engliinder  ist  eigentlich  ohne  Intelligenz.'  Lord 
Ci.  Hamilton  got  up  and  said  such  a  scheme  as  Mr  Rathbone's 
could  not  be  entertained.  The  cost  of  education  was  too 
great  already.  We  were  spending  over  ;^2, 000,000  a  year,  and 
in  such  a  state  of  things  no  proposal  could  even  be  considered 
which  would  involve  an  outlay  of  at  least  ^2000  a  year  more. 
Besides,  it  was  wrong  to  say  the  inspectors  had  no  training. 
They  were  required  to  receive  some  sort  of  instruction  for  at 
least  a  fortnight  (!).  After  this  'explanation'  from  the 
Minister,  Mr  Rathbone  did  not  divide  the  House." 

Practising  Schools 

"  If  you  took  a  valuable  watch  to  be  mended  and  the 
watchmaker  said,  '  I'll  hand  it  over  to  my  apprentices,  I  find 
mending  watches  capital  practice  for  my  apprentices  and  in 
time  they  become  skilled  workmen,'  you  would  probably 
object  and  say,  '  It  may  be  a  good  thing  for  the  apprentices, 
but  not  a  good  thing  for  the  watches,  and  after  all  we  must 
take  the  watches  into  account.'  " 


388  R.  H.  Quick 

LANGUAGE 

Conscious  and  Uncotiscious  Language  Learning 

"There  are  two  different  methods  of  picking  up  a  language, 
the  conscious  and  the  unconscious.  Children,  of  course, 
learn  entirely  after  the  latter.  Prendergast  says  they  are 
wonderfully  successful,  and  that  therefore  all  learners  should 
try  to  learn  in  the  same  way.  It  must  be  rememl^ered,  how- 
ever, that  learning  a  language  is  the  main  employment  of 
children's  lives,  and  that  grown  people  cannot  bestow  the  same 
amount  of  time  and  attention  to  it.  Moreover,  a  child's  mind 
is  a  vacuum  which  naturally  sucks  in  such  knowledge  as  the 
child  feels  the  want  of.  The  conditions  are  so  different  that 
we  cannot  infer  from  the  child's  success  the  possibility  of  the 
older  pupil  succeeding  in  the  same  way.  The  adult,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  certain  faculties  which  the  child  has  not.  The 
conscious  method  makes  use  of  these  faculties  and  requires 
the  learner  to  do  by  mental  effort  what  the  child  does  instinc- 
tively. The  child  unconsciously  observes  and  uses  the  analo- 
gies of  the  language.  These  analogies  are  pointed  out  to  the 
older  pupil,  and  he  is  required  to  apply  them  consciously. 
Still  no  portion  of  a  language  can  be  said  to  have  been 
mastered  till  the  pupil  can  use  that  portion  unconsciously  and 
without  mental  effort  of  any  kind.  Our  ordinary  schoolboy 
never  acquires  any  mastery  over  even  the  commonest  portion 
of  the  Latin  language,  so  that  Latin  never  is  to  him  a  direct 
means  of  receiving  thought,  still  less  of  expressing  it,  but  the 
words  remain  to  him  a  kind  of  cipher  which  conceals  the 
author's  meaning  till  the  decipherer  ferrets  it  out  by  the  appli- 
cation of  certain  rules.  Schoolmasters  say  truly  that  the 
application  of  these  rules  is  good  mental  discipline  ;  but  the 
fact  is  the  average  boy  will  not  apply  them.     It  is  too  much 


Composition  389 

trouble,  so  the  youngsters  take  shots  like  the  unfortunate 
translator  of  triste  lupus  in  Tom  Brown,  and  spend  a  great  deal 
of  time  upon  Latin  without  ever  learning  it.  The  ordinary 
method  is  to  ascend  through  vague  ideas  about  a  great  many 
words,  and  through  a  conscious  application  of  rules  and 
analogies  to  a  state  in  which  the  ordinary  words  of  the 
language  are  known  precisely  and  intuitively,  and  the  main 
part  of  the  language  becomes  a  medium  for  the  direct  com- 
munication of  ideas.  Prendergast's  method  is  to  make  the 
pupil  enter  on  this  last  stage  from  the  very  commencement. 
This  can  be  done  by  obtaining  the  mastery  over  a  small 
fraction  of  the  language  and  gradually  adding  to  the  province 
thus  mastered." 

Arnold's  First  French   Book 

"  What  absurd  notions  people  have  of  '  First  Books  '  ! 
Here  is  a  First  French  Book  for  children,  and  I,  a  man  who 
has  spent  some  years  in  teaching  language,  who  knows  a 
certain  amount  of  French  and  has  spent  some  time  in  a 
French  family,  find  these  exercises  here  and  there  puzzling, 
and  on  the  whole  well  suited  to  my  present  state  of  know- 
ledge ! 

"  My  own  experience  makes  me  think  that  nothing  is  done 
carefully  by  boys  unless  they  know  that  it  will  be  immediately 
looked  over  carefully  by  the  master.  Exercises  are  generally 
considered  too  much  as  a  convenient  way  of  keeping  boys 
employed  out  of  school.  There  is  no  time  allotted  to  them  in 
school  at  all,  but  the  only  real  way  to  teach  from  them  would 
be  to  look  through  a  set  of  exercises,  observe  all  the  chief 
mistakes,  explain  about  them  to  the  form,  and  for  or  with  the 
next  exercise  give  some  sentences  that  would  test  whether  the 
explanations  have  been  understood.  But  for  all  this  there  is 
no  time.  One  feels  one  must  get  on  somehow,  and  the  con- 
sequence is  that  if  ever  one  sets  a  back   exercise,  one  finds 


390  R.  //.   Quick 

nearly  as  many  mistakes  made  in  it  as  the  first  time  ;  in  other 
words  the  boys  have  learned  little  or  nothing  from  their 
exercises." 

Learning  French.     A  Personal  Experience 
17  Nov.  '69.     64  Rue  Perronet,  Neuilly 

"  I  came  here  yesterday,  sent  here  by  Mme.  Pressens^,  to 
whom  I  had  been  sent  by  Butler. 

"  As  to  French,  I  don't  find  that  I  can  start  talking  it  at  all, 
though  I  can  understand  a  little.  I  don't  think  that  Prender- 
gast's  book  has  given  one  at  all  the  knowledge  that  the  time 
spent  in  other  ways  would  have  done.  I  attribute  this  to  the 
badness  of  the  book  rather  than  to  the  method.  If  there  were 
any  analysis  of  constructions  on  which  the  sentences  were 
based,  and  if  whole  verbs  were  given  instead  of  scraps,  I  think 
I  should  have  learnt  much  more. 

"  Learning  by  heart.  I  have  to-day  set  to  work  learning 
by  heart  Lamartine's  lines  beginning 

'  Ainsi  toujours  pousses  vers  de  nouveaux  rivages.' 

'^  I  believe  I  gave  at  least  an  hour  a  verse  to  it,  and  yet 
though  I  can  say  four  or  five  verses  slowly  and  with  thought, 
I  can't  get  it  to  run  naturally  at  all.  I  learn  by  the  sense  and 
I  have  to  think  ahead.  The  words  don't  flow  of  their  own 
accord  ;  I  can't  make  them  ;  though  as  for  the  first  stanza  I 
have  said  it  without  book  at  least  thirty  times.  There  are 
two  things  which  my  mind  retains  :  First,  the  sense ;  second, 
the  image  of  the  word  which  was  received  by  the  eye.  The 
ear  is  not  helpful  in  the  least,  although  I  have  from  the 
beginning  read  the  piece  aloud.  So  completely  does  my  ear 
seem  useless  in  the  matter  that  when  Madame  Lalot  read  some 
verses  which  I  could  have  said  myself  the  sound  conveyed  no 
meaning  to  me. 


A  personal  experience  391 

"  Nov.  20.  Here  as  usual  one  sees  how  not  to  do  it. 
Donkin,  who  has  been  here  nine  months,  can  just  make  him- 
self understood  in  English-French,  the  accent  utterly  bad.  He 
seems  to  understand  what  is  said  and  this  is  his  sole  acquire- 
ment. Every  morning  he  does  a  dictc  which  is  corrected  by 
M.  Lalot ;  he  afterwards  copies  it,  and  there  an  end.  In  a 
page  of  writing  he  will  have  about  twenty  faults,  in  fact  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  any  notion  whatever  of  the  written 
language  and  these  dictes  are  waste  of  time  to  him,  as  he  never 
examines  the  mistakes  after  they  are  corrected  and  the  copy 
made.  I  see  more  and  more  the  need  of  going  again  and 
again  over  the  same  ground,  and  people  like  M.  Lalot  do  not 
seem  to  see  it  at  all. 

"Another  thing  one  sees  by  trial  is  the  foolishness  of  gram- 
matical subtilties  at  starting.  M.  Lalot  gives  me  a  grammar, 
and  before  I  know  the  verbs  or  the  ordinary  rules  for  gender 
wants  me  to  get  up  such  precious  pieces  of  information  as  that 
hymne  is  feminine  as  a  church  song  and  masculine  as  a  war 
song.  These  trifles  interest  people  who  know  the  language, 
and  so  they  force  them  on  people  who  don't  know  the 
language.  L.  wants  me  to  spend  time  and  labour  on  getting 
up  such  minutiae  as  when  to  write  les  Cesar  and  when  Ics 
Chars.  Nothing  could  be  more  stupid.  When  one  is  toler- 
ably at  home  in  the  language  such  niceties  may  be  profitable, 
but  they  are  not  at  first,  and  at  the  best  are  quite  unimportant 
for  a  stranger.  Yet  such  is  the  perversity  of  teachers  that 
when  they  speak  of  'grammar,'  they  almost  always  mean  such 
things  as  these. 

"  No  doubt  one  of  the  main  things  in  teaching  is  to  know 
what  to  teach  first.  Blunders  such  as  I  have  mentioned 
above  are  common  with  all  bad  teachers. 

"  When  I  took  some  velocipede  lessons  in  town  the  man 
gave  me  minute  directions  how  to  start.  These  were  absurd 
when  I  was  quite  unable  to  ride.  I  have  practised  here  on  an 
incline  where  the  velocipede  starts  of  itself,  and  having  thus  got 


392  R.  II.  Quick 

the  balance  and  the  action  of  the  legs,  I  fancy  I  shall  soon  get 
the  starting. 

"  My  French  does  not  get  on  as  well  as  I  expected.  I 
have  indeed  hardly  any  advantages  here  I  should  not  have  in 
England,  and  not  liking  the  people  puts  me  out  of  humour  and 
prevents  me  profiting  by  the  little  I  see  of  them.  French 
seems  a  very  hard  language  to  understand  and  to  speak,  and 
unless  among  people  whom  I  had  some  sympathy  with  I  should 
never  begin  to  talk.  The  Lalots  are  the  worst  people  in  the 
world  for  the  purpose,  and  the  French  generally  (and  the 
Germans  too  for  that  matter)  are  so  fond  of  the  sound  of  their 
own  voices  that  a  foreigner  has  no  chance  of  getting  a  word  in. 
No  doubt  it  is  a  nuisance  to  hear  a  man  floundering  about 
in  one's  native  tongue,  and  unless  they  had  a  real  interest  in 
getting  one  on  they  would  not  be  likely  to  encourage  one  in 
talking. 

"I  should  have  done  better  if  I  had  had  some  regular 
instruction,  but  no  one  understands  how  to  teach. 

"  I  fancy  I  could  teach  better  than  I  can  learn." 


Expression  and  Imprcssio7i  in  Language  Teaching 

"  Of  course  it  becomes  a  question  whether  it  is  worth  while 
to  try  to  get  expression  before  one  has  given  extensive  impres- 
sion. Expression  is  indeed  the  only  proof  of  accurate  know- 
ledge, and  I  at  present  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  drill  in 
small  sentences  involving  the  main  inflections,  the  most 
common  words  and  the  usual  prepositions,  adverbs,  &:c., 
should  be  insisted  on  at  an  early  stage.  Against  this  it  may 
be  alleged  that  to  require  expression  too  soon  wastes  time. 
Impfession  is  much  easier,  and  when  impression  enough  has 
been  received,  expression  will  come  almost  naturally.  It  is 
certainly  very  difficult  to  remember  anything  about  words  till 
the  words  themselves  are  quite  at  home  in  one's  mind.     It  is 


Mastery  Method  v.  Impressionists        393 

the  same  with  people.  I  see  a  man  passing  in  the  street,  and  a 
friend  tells  me  '  That  man's  name  is  Thompson.  He  is  clerk 
in  the  Bank  of  England,  lives  in  Islington  and  has  ten 
children.'  If  I  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  the  man  before,  I 
very  soon  forget  all  these  particulars.  But  suppose  I  have 
noticed  him  passing  the  window  every  day  for  the  last 
fortnight,  in  this  case  the  information  will  probably  stick." 


The  two  schools  of  Language  Teaching 

"  Sonnenschein  has  a  feud  with  the  Look-and-Say  ^lethod 
of  learning  to  read,  and  the  first  principles  of  language  learning 
are  at  stake  in  this  dispute. 

"  Au  fond  we  have  one  party  in  favour  of  classifying  the 
phenomena  of  language  and  giving  the  facts  in  order  according 
to  this  classification.  This  was  the  aim  of  the  old  teachers  by 
grammar,  though  they  worked  the  system  stupidly,  classified 
badly,  confused  their  classifications  with  exceptions,  and  often 
instead  of  giving  the  facts  in  the  concrete  gave  rules  about 
things  of  which  the  pupil  was  ignorant.  Teaching  facts  in 
order  should  not  be  condemned  because  it  has  been  done  so 
stupidly. 

"  On  the  other  side  we  have  people  who  consider  language 
(as  Prendergast  says)  a  sphere,  so  that  it  does  not  matter  where 
you  begin.  Some  of  these  would  have  the  facts  observed  and 
classified  by  the  learners  —  e.g.  Jacotot.  Others  would  have 
no  classification  at  all  in  the  first  stages,  of  which  school  we 
have  Ratich,  Hamilton  and,  latest  and  most  thorough-going  of 
all,  Prendergast. 

"  In  teaching  to  read  we  have  the  first  party,  Sonnenschein 
and  Meiklejohn  teaching  by  categories  —  mab,  gab,' fab,  &c. — 
and  the  other  party  telling  the  child  the  sound  of  each  word  in 
an  ordinary  sentence,  and  thus,  according  to  Sonnenschein, 
'reducing  the  English  language  to  the  level  of  the  Chinese, 


394  ^-  ^^-   Q'i^ii^^^ 

having  a  sei)arate  symbol  for  each  word.'  And  of  course  it 
might  be  e(]ually  well  objected  against  the  teachers  of  an 
inflected  language  without  categories  that  they  would  give  each 
word  a  separate  declension  or  conjugation.  I  can't  help 
thinking  that  this  objection  is  fatal  to  the  '  spherical '  party,  at 
least  to  those  who  like  Ratich  and  his  followers  at  first  make 
no  use  of  categories. 

"  But  here  one  observes  that  language  teachers  are  divided 
into  two  other  parties  where  we  find  side  by  side  many  who, 
according  to  the  previous  division,  were  opposed  to  one  another, 
and  also  many  differing  who  were  before  agreed.  The  two 
parties  of  which  I  am  now  speaking  are  those  which  would  give 
only  few  impressions  and  those  impressions  perfectly  exact  and 
distinct,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  those  teachers  who  would 
give  a  multiplicity  of  impressions,  each  impression  being  in 
itself  of  course  weak  and  indistinct,  and  would  trust  to  the 
same  impression  coming  over  and  over  again  in  different 
connections  till  it  became  distinct  and  strong.  Here  we  find 
Prendergast  at  one  with  the  old  teachers  who  kept  their  boys  a 
year  or  two  in  learning  by  heart  the  Eton  Latin  Grammar,  and 
with  Jacotot,  and  the  rapid  school  while  they  thus  lose  some 
sphericals  do  not  gain  any  of  the  categorists. 

"  I  myself  am  naturally  of  the  categorists  and  still  more  of 
the  slow  school ;  but  I  have  found  practically  that  the  mastery 
plan  with  or  without  categories  has  its  Schattenseite.  It  is  slow 
in  every  sense  of  the  word.  There  is  nothing  in  it  to  stimulate 
the  energy  of  the  pupil.  Jacotot  somehow  managed  to  do  this 
and  his  scholars  '  taught  themselves,'  but  the  ordinary  master 
cannot  thus  stimulate  the  ordinary  scholar,  and  if  the  subject 
is  dull  and  is  repeated  usque  ad  nauseam,  the  pupil  soon 
'stagnates  in  the  weeds  of  sloth.'  W.  W.  tells  me  that  he 
worked  some  Latin  translation  with  his  boys  very  thoroughly 
on  the  '  mastery '  method,  but  finding  that  he  could  not  get  his 
boys  to  do  a  fair  amount  of  work,  he  reverted  to  the  ordinary 
plan  and  forged  ahead.     At  the  end  of  the  half  the  examination 


M2iltum  07'  Multa?  395 

showed  that  his  boys  knew  as  much  about  what  they  had  done 
in  the  usual  way  as  about  what  they  had  '  mastered.' 

"  In  my  own  attempts  to  teach  German  in  the  '  mastery ' 
way,  I  seem  to  myself  to  have  been  as  unsuccessful  as  Bowen 
has  been  on  the  other  system,  and  that  is  saying  a  great  deal." 

Doctors  differ 

"  E.  E.  Bowen,  in  his  essay  (Liberal  Education),  quotes  with 
approval  the  proverb  that  one  learns  to  speak  well  by  speaking 
badly.  Ascham,  in  his  Schoolmaster,  quotes  Cicero  '  Loquendo 
male  loqui  discunt,'  and  advises  that  speaking  Latin  should  be 
forbidden  in  the  earlier  stages.  He  quotes  ().  Budaeus,  who 
says  that  he  suffered  all  his  life  from  getting  to  speak  Latin  ill 
at  first  (see  Barnard's  English  Pedagogy,  p.  72).  Here  is  a 
discrepancy  !  I  wonder  whether  language  teachers  often  con- 
sider which  side  is  right  here." 

MultiDii  or  Multa  ? 

"  The  plan  of  getting  through  a  lot  of  construing,  so  that 
the  boys  acquire  no  end  of  vague  ideas  of  words  (Hamilton- 
ianism)  is  I  think  a  most  erroneous  method.  With  my  be- 
ginners 1  have  gone  on  the  other  tack  entirely  and  proceeded 
synthetically,  making  the  boys  use  their  knowledge  and  twist 
and  turn  the  words  as  fast  as  they  learn  them.  .  .  .  How  odd  it 
is  that  I  keep  swaying  backwards  and  forwards  from  the  rapid 
impressionist  system  of  Marcel  to  the  Arnold's  First  French 
Book  system,  always  in  favour  of  the  one  I  have  not  been 
trying." 

The  inductive  jnethod 

" '  Intellectual  action  begins  with  the  perception  of  dif- 
ferences.' 


396  A\  //.  Quick 

"  So  says  Bain,  a  writer  I  don't  often  quote.  I  feel  about 
teaching  what  I  feel  about  religion,  that  if  only  ofie  vital  truth 
got  j)ossession  of  us  thoroughly,  it  would  raise  us  to  a  new 
region.  Thus  the  above  truth  would  upset  most  of  the  bad 
practice  of  the  schoolroom.  £.g.  we  teach  children  who 
know  no  French,  the  rules  about  the  French  adjective.  Then 
we  tell  them  that  the  feminine  of  /'on  is  bonne.  But  suppose 
we  wrote  on  the  blackboard  :  — 

"  E,  My  father  is  good. 

"  F,  Mon  pere  est  bon. 

"  E2  My  mother  is  good. 

"  Fo  Ma  mere  est  bonne. 
"  Then  one  asks  how  many  words  are  the  same  in  Ei  and 
E2?  Ans.  Three.  How  many  in  F,  and  F^?  Ans.  Only  one. 
What  is  the  French  for  'good'  in  one  and  what  in  two?  In 
this  way  one  can  question  the  whole  thing  out  of  the  children 
and  get  them  to  observe  differences.  Directly  they  have 
observed  and  thus  got  hold  of  the  thing,  make  them  use  it, 
and  it  will  soon  be  part  of  their  minds.  Very  little  need  be 
told.  Suppose  one  goes  on  writing,  Mon  frere  est  bon,  Ma 
soeur  est  bonne,  &c.,  the  children  will  soon  find  out  for  them- 
selves when  to  put  bon  and  when  bonne.  It  might  be  good 
in  time  to  make  a  mistake  and  see  if  they  spot  it." 

Capitalising  Knotv ledge 

"11.  12.  88.  In  Natural  Science  the  workers  co-operate, 
and  every  advance  made  by  an  individual  is  in  effect  made  by 
the  whole  body  of  scientific  men.  But  in  most  other  subjects 
this  is  not  so.  In  education  especially  there  is  an  utter  want 
of  capitalised  knowledge.  Men  who  have  a  turn  for  knowledge 
in  this  subject  seldom  have  any  thinking  faculty,  and  they  pile 
together  as  fuel  a  mass  of  stuff,  a  great  deal  of  which  won't 
burn.     The  thinkers  keep  on  starting  from  the  scratch,  and 


Radonvilliers  397 

the  doers  make  their  own  experiments  or  fall  into  the  usual 
routine.  Take  the  art  of  learning  languages.  Surely  some 
sort  of  agreement  might  have  been  reached  in  this  before 
now,  but  our  teachers  have  not  settled  first  principles,  and 
don't  know  what  has  been  done  towards  setthng  them.  Marcel 
is  out  of  print.  Prendergast's  valuable  book  ^  never  reached  a 
second  edition,  and  even  people  who  try  the  Mastery  System 
don't  seem  to  have  heard  of  it. 

"  The  other  day  C.  J.  Longman  talked  to  me  about  the 
grind  in  classics  and  the  absence  of  literary  taste  for  the 
ancients  in  our  public  schools.  He  said  he  took  a  second  at 
Oxford,  but  when  at  Harrow  he  had  no  notion  of  the  meaning 
of  what  he  read.  To-day  I  stumble  on  Radonvilliers  (1709) 
in  Buisson's  Dictiouuaire,  who  makes  much  the  same  com- 
plaint. 

"  His  treatise  De  la  maniere  crapprendre  les  langties,  ])ub- 
lished  in  1768  anonymously,  is  directed  against  the  usual 
method  of  studying  a  language  by  means  of  a  grammar  and 
dictionary.  '  What  (he  asks)  is  language  as  used  by  man  ?  A 
practical  art.  But  arts  of  this  kind  are  learnt  not  by  reasoning, 
but  by  exercise.  Place  a  pen  between  the  fingers  of  a  child 
and  guide  his  hand,  after  a  time  he  will  know  how  to  write, 
though  he  knows  nothing  of  the  theory  of  caligraphy.  Kxer- 
cise  the  ears  and  tongue  of  a  child,  and  he  will  soon  under- 
stand what  you  say  and  be  able  to  answer  you  without  knowing 
the  rules  of  language.  Properly  speaking  the  practical  arts 
have  no  rules.  What  pass  as  such  are  only  a  collection  of  the 
observations  made  as  to  the  manner  in  which  these  arts  were 
at  first  exercised  by  help  of  unaided  natural  instinct.  It  follows 
that  skill  does  not  consist  in  knowing  these  so-called  rules,  but 
in  observing  them  without  reflection,  whether  known  or  not.' 
Radonvilliers,  in  brief,  is  a  ra])id  impressionist  who  advocates 
the  Hamiltoiiian  method  of  interlinear  tnmslation." 

'  The  Musteiy  of  Language,  by  Thomas  Prendergast  (Bentley,  1864). 


398  R.  //.   Quick 

MEMORY 

Vai?i  repetitions 

"  We  only  see  what  we  want  to  see,  and  hear  what  we  want 
to  hear.  Some  sights  there  are  indeed  which  arrest  our  atten- 
tion in  spite  of  ourselves,  some  words  to  which  we  cannot 
close  our  ears,  but  these  are  no  ordinary  sights,  no  common 
sounds.  In  learning  by  heart,  mere  impressions  will  not  do. 
For  two  years  and  a  half  I  have  used  our  school  prayers  every 
morning,  and  yet  I  could  not  say  them  by  heart." 

Ambiguity  of  the  word  Memory 

"  No  maxim  could  be  more  absurdly  incorrect  than  Casau- 
bon's  favourite  maxim  Tantum  scimus  quantum  mcmoria 
tenemus.  I  suppose  Casaubon  would  have  said,  we  hold  in 
the  memory,  and  therefore  know  only  what  we  can  produce  at 
will.  Do  we  know  everything  that  we  can  with  any  amount  of 
effort  and  any  allowance  of  time  reproduce  ?  We  school- 
masters do  not  admit  this.  If  a  boy  hesitates  and  stumbles 
we  say  he  does  not  half  know  his  lessons.  But  if  we  know 
properly  only  that  which  we  can  produce  readily,  knowledge  is 
a  matter  of  degree,  and  we  really  know  thoroughly  nothing  but 
the  alphabet  and  the  multiplication  tables  to  the  end  of  the 
fives  or  sixes.  And  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  vast  number  of 
things  which  are  in  the  mind  but  cannot  be  reproduced  at  will? 
Suppose  two  students  have  been  at  work  on  the  history  of 
Greece.  One  of  them  has  read  with  interest  and  intelligence 
the  whole  of  Thirlwall  or  of  Grote.  The  other  has  worked  up 
Smith's  School  History  till  he  can  promptly  reproduce  any  fact 
in  it. 

''  According  to  Casaubon,  the  latter  would  know  much  more 
Greek   history   than  the   former.     But    this   is   clearly  wrong. 


A  freak  of  Memory  399 

The  first  man  might  be  able  to  reproduce  very  Uttle  with 
accuracy,  but  for  his  whole  life  every  name  in  Greek  history 
would  call  up  in  his  mind  a  distinct  image  with  all  kinds  of 
interests  and  ideas  connected  with  it.  The  same  name  would 
suggest  to  the  other  man  little  beyond  a  date,  and  even  this  it 
would  suggest  only  for  a  little  while  after  the  study  was  over. 
In  a  year  or  two  he  would  have  forgotten  all  he  had  learned 
and  would  be  glad  to  forget  it." 

A  freak  of  Memory 

"14.  I.  78.  The  other  day  at  IMr  Blackmore's  funeral  I 
met  with  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  action  of  memory. 
When  I  was  a  boy  at  Wandsworth  Mr  Blackmore  used  con- 
stantly to  speak  of  his  friend,  *  Peter  Dornay,'  who  lived  near 
him.  I  knew  Mr  Dornay  by  sight  very  well,  and  remember 
him  as  a  youngish  man  with  a  striking  face,  sharp  features  and 
curly  brown  hair.  This  is  34  or  35  years  ago.  Since  that 
time  I  have  never  heard  or  thought  of  Mr  Dornay,  and  had 
quite  forgotten  his  existence.  After  the  funeral  at  the  house  I 
heard  a  gentleman  called  Mr  Dornay  and  the  name  seemed 
familiar,  but  at  first  it  called  up  nothing  in  my  mind.  By 
degrees  I  remembered  where  Mr  Dornay  used  to  live,  and  at 
length  I  got  a  tolerably  clear  image  of  what  he  used  to  look 
like,  but  I  could  not  see  any  connection  between  this  image 
and  the  face  of  the  old  man  before  me.  But  at  last  they  came 
together,  and  I  recognised  the  man  I  had  not  seen  for  at  least 
34  years.  This  is  a  singular  instance  of  an  apparently  faded 
image  being  '  developed,'  as  photographers  say,  in  the  mind- 
It  is  a  proof  too  of  the  strength  of  early  impressions." 

Fitch  on  Memory 

"  Fitch,  in  his  tract  on  '  Memory,'  published  by  the  Sunday 
School  Union,  makes  memory  depend  on  four  things  :  — 


400  R.  H.  Quick 

"i.     Frequency  of  repetition. 

"  2.     Attention  and  interest. 

"  3.     Desire  to  remember. 

"  4.  The  degree  in  which  the  understanding  is  exercised 
on  the  subject. 
"  To  these  should  be  added  the  time  the  idea  remains  in 
possession  of  the  mind.  Also  it  makes  a  vast  difference 
whether  the  repetitions  are  reproductions  by  exertion  of  will  or 
merely  brought  about  by  external  suggestion.  When  I  was  at 
Harrow  I  found  I  could  not  repeat  the  prayers  I  had  read 
every  morning  for  two  or  three  years,  but  directly  I  began  to 
try  to  say  them  without  reading  I  soon  acquired  the  power  of 
doing  so. 

"  I  have  just  had  a  proof  that  interest  alone  will  not  always 
suffice  for  fixing  a  thing  in  one's  memory,  and  that  we  want  a 
subject  to  remain  some  time  in  consciousness  or  to  be  brought 
back  again  and  again  to  it.  In  looking  at  a  note-book  of  1876 
I  find  some  quotations  from  J.  Eachard  (1698).  These  I 
must  have  made  in  the  British  Museum  (Aug.  1876),  but  I 
suppose  that  I  dismissed  them  from  my  mind  when  I  had 
made  the  notes,  and  the  consequence  is  that  I  entirely  forgot 
them,  and  when  I  came  upon  them  the  other  day  (only  2\ 
years  after  making  them)  they  seemed  a  new  discovery,  and  I 
can't  remember  anything  about  them,  nor  have  I  the  least 
notion  how  I  came  across  the  book." 

Vagaries  of  Memory 

"  One  great  puzzle  is  that  the  memory  like  Babbage's 
machine  acts  quite  right  in  the  main,  but  with  just  so  much 
undistinguishable  error  that  we  cannot  thoroughly  rely  on  it. 
Yesterday,  29  Jan.  '79,  with  reference  to  the  scolding  article 
in  the  Quarterly  Revinv,  I  have  in  my  head  some  phrases 
about  having  our  ears  cudgelled  and  being  thumped  with 
words.      I    soon  made  out  that  they  were  Shakespeare's :    of 


Memoiy  inactive  401 

this  I  felt  certain.  Just  then  as  Faust  in  the  morning  twilight 
sees  how  'Farb'  um  Farbe  klart  sich  los  vom  Boden, '  so  by 
degrees  I  became  conscious  that  the  lines  were  in  King  John. 
Next  I  was  sure  that  they  were  the  words  of  the  Bastard 
Falconbridge.  So  far  I  was  quite  right,  but  at  the  same  time 
I  felt  no  less  certain  that  the  words  referred  to  a  string  of 
curses  from  Blanche.  Here  I  was  wrong.  The  cudgeller  is 
simply  a  citizen  from  the  besieged  town.  Why  should  my 
memory  have  misled  me  in  one  particular  when  it  was  quite 
accurate  in  the  rest?  " 

Memory  in  general  not  active 

"16.  10.  80.  It  has  often  been  observed  that  when  our 
mind  is  full  of  a  subject  everything  we  fall  in  with  seems  to 
connect  itself  with  that  subject  and  afford  illustrations  to  it. 
Now  if  everything  is  capable  of  affording  illustrations  to  the 
subject  of  our  thoughts  what  a  mass  of  illustrations  we  should 
suppose  would  occur  to  people  of  great  memories !  But, 
practically,  there  is  a  limit  to  this  crowding  of  illustrations. 
Our  memories  are  for  the  most  part  not  active  memories. 
They  seldom  suggest  illustrations  to  us.  When  our  minds  are 
full  of  a  subject  we  may  read  something  apparently  not  con- 
nected with  it  and  find  all  sorts  of  unexpected  illustrations,  but 
if  we  did  not  read  that  book,  however  familiar  we  might  be 
with  it  the  chances  are  that  the  illustrations  would  not  occur 
to  us.  Most  of  what  we  hold  in  our  memory  is  stored  away 
and  not  ready  for  use.  I  have  observed  this  even  in  Macaulay. 
When  I  was  very  familiar  with  his  Addison  I  read  Johnson's 
Addison  and  I  found  that  Macaulay  had  not  gathered  his 
material  from  all  quarters,  but  had  just  read  up  Johnson  and 
used  his  Addison  almost  exclusively.  Similarly  Ruskin  has 
lately  written  on  Byron,  and  he  takes  most  of  his  quotations 
from  a  poem  not  much  known,  TJie  Js/aud,  which  Ruskin  had 
evidently  just  read.     He  then  talks  about  style,  and  he  gives 

2D 


402  R.  H.   Quick 

some  very  apposite  quotations  from  Shakespeare,  but  except 
one  from  Coriolanus  they  are  all  from  Henry  V.,  which  he 
no  doubt  had  just  been  reading.  I  daresay  we  could  by  care- 
ful study  find  out  what  authors  had  been  recently  reading 
when  they  were  composing.  Seeley  once  remarked  to  me 
that  the  passage  in  Lycidas  about  the  Angel  of  the  guarded 
mount  that  looks  on  Namancos  and  Bayona's  hold,  was  an 
outcome  of  the  study  he  had  just  been  making  of  the  geography 
of  the  West  of  England  for  his  intended  epic  of  King  Arthur." 


Quo  scmel  est  inihuta  recens 

"30.  4.  83.  We  hear  a  good  deal  about  the  necessary 
fading  of  impressions  in  process  of  time,  but  it  seems  possible 
to  get  things  so  fixed  in  the  mind  that  they  don't  fade.  I 
suppose  different  minds  differ  greatly  in  this  respect.  I  once 
met  an  English  lady  who  by  twenty  years'  residence  in 
Germany  had  in  a  great  measure  forgotten  English.  She 
certainly  spoke  it  with  great  difficulty,  though  what  she  did  say 
was  correct  and  the  accent  perfect.  My  old  friend  Monicke, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  not  in  the  least  suffered  in  his  English 
by  a  twenty  years'  residence  in  Leipzig.  It  is  true  he  had 
given  lessons  in  English,  but  had  hardly  spoken  it  at  all. 
Llewelyn  Davies  told  me  that,  after  some  twenty  years' 
interval,  he  took  up  some  classical  Greek  and  found,  as 
far  as  he  could  judge,  he  had  lost  nothing  in  the  time. 
Many  things,  some  of  them  quite  trivial,  seem  to  become  so 
much  a  part  of  our  mind  that  time  has  no  effect  on  them. 
Some  lines  of  Southey's  about  Cornelius  Agrippa  I  learnt 
from  hearing  other  boys  say  them  when  I  was  at  school  at 
Kingston,  and  I  remember  them  after  forty  years,  and  yet 
I  could  never  get  my  pupils  to  remember  poetry  for  as  many 
weeks." 


Early  Memories  403 


Memory  of  subjective  feelings 

"28.  3.  84.  When  we  talk  of  memory  we  generally  think 
only  of  what  comes  to  us  from  without,  the  thoughts  or  facts 
we  learn  from  other  people.  But  we  suffer  most  perhaps  from 
forgetting  our  own  thoughts  and  experiences.  This  has  been 
brought  home  to  me  lately  by  preaching.  I  think  of  a  subject 
and  get  to  see  a  good  deal  of  truth  connected  with  it.  But 
after  I  have  preached  on  this  subject  the  truth  is  lost  again. 
My  mind  is  soon  as  poor  as  it  was  before,  and  I  wonder  I  had 
so  much  to  say.  This,  of  course,  applies  more  especially  to 
extempore  preaching,  but  even  if  I  write  the  sermon  the  words 
sometimes  remain  after  the  thought  has  faded  from  them. 
What  we  once  took  interest  in  remains  like  the  crowns  and 
wreaths  of  an  illumination.  We  see  the  devices  next  day, 
but  the  lights  have  gone  out  and  they  interest  us  no  longer." 

'  Still  so  gently  o''er  me  stealing 
Mem'ry  will  bring  back  the  feeling.' 

"24.  6.  88.  I  have  lately  been  brought  in  contact  with 
scenes  that  I  have  not  visited  for  40  years.  One  thing  strikes 
me  as  noteworthy.  The  past  does  not  suddenly  flash  into  the 
mind's  eye,  but  it  comes  like  a  scene  from  which  a  fog  is 
slowly  lifting.  When  I  first  spoke  of  the  Yelfs  who  were  at 
school  with  me,  I  could  hardly  remember  Alfred  and  did  not 
feel  sure  of  his  name,  but  in  a  day  or  two  I  remembered  all 
about  him.  In  the  same  way  things  come  back  gradual]}- 
when  I  tell  Dora  stories  of  my  schoolboy  life,  of  boating  at 
Cambridge,  of  Swiss  travel,  &c.  At  first  I  can  see  very  little, 
but  by  degrees  'Farb'  urn  Farbe  klart  sich  los  vom  Boden.' 
After  telling  Dora  about  my  running  down  the  Gemmi  in  a 
mist,  I  recalled  the  name  of  the  two  men  (Cross)  with  whom 
1  had  been  walking.  I  don't  think  their  name  has  come  into 
my  head  for  30  years,  and  I  can't  recall  the  look  of  them  now. 


404  J^-  H.   Quick 

As  these  glimpses  come  back  one  wonders  hotv  much  of  the 
last  50  years  it  would  be  possible  to  recall.  There  is  little 
visible  now,  but  I  have  no  doubt  much  would  come  back  of 
which  I  have  now  no  consciousness." 


A   Trick  of  Afemory 

"9  Jan.  '86.  An  odd  instance  of  the  working  of  memory 
occurred  to  me  a  day  or  two  ago.  I  went  for  10  or  12  years 
to  Saunders,  the  dentist  (now  Sir  Edwin  Saunders),  and  then 
in  1870  I  gave  him  up,  thinking  his  eyesight  might  be  fail- 
ing, and  went  to  George  Parkinson,  to  whom  I  have  been 
once  or  twice  a  year  ever  since,  i.e.  for  16  years.  Yet  the 
other  day  when  the  servant  opened  the  door,  I  said,  'I  have 
an  appointment  with  Mr  Saunders.'  " 


Memory  and  Intelligence 

"It  is  often  supposed  that  memory  in  childhood  acts  in- 
dependently of  understanding,  and  certainly  it  is  made  to 
do  so,  but  we  retain  what  we  understand  much  better  than 
what  we  don't  understand.  Hence  in  the  first  of  the  Pro- 
vinciates Pascal  says  of  the  word  'prochain'  in  'pouvoir 
prochain, '  'Je  cherchais  ma  meraoire  de  ce  terme  car  mon 
intelligence  n'y  avait  aucune  part.  Et  de  peur  de  I'oublier 
je  fus  promptement  retrouver  mon  Jans^niste.'  " 


Word  V.   Thing 

"  It  is  often  contended  that  if  we  know  a  thing  it  does  not 
matter  the  least  whether  we  know  the  name  of  the  thing, 
excei)t  of  course  as  a  matter  of  convenience.  But  somehow 
knowledge  clusters  about  a  name,  and  is  far  better  retained  in 
connection  with  the  name  than  it  could  possibly  be  otherwise. 


Woi'd  V.   Thing  405 

"This  is  brought  home  to  me  by  recent  experience.  I  ran 
across  a  boy  (a  young  man  now)  the  other  day  at  Harrow,  and 
knew  him  perfectly  well  as  having  been  in  the  school.  I  knew 
too  that  I  had  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  him.  A  great  deal 
about  him  came  into  my  mind,  his  odd  manner  when  I  found 
fault  with  him,  &c.,  but  I  could  not  think  of  his  name  and 
could  not  recall  for  certain  whether  I  had  taught  him  on  the 
Modern  or  Classical  side.  After  puzzling  a  long  time  I  asked 
C,  and  directly  I  heard  the  name  a  flood  of  light  came  into  my 
mind  and  I  knew  a// about  the  boy  without  any  further  effort  of 
any  kind.  When  I  was  at  the  school  too  I  felt  that  I  knew 
boys  if  I  knew  their  names  far  better  than  I  should  have  known 
the  same  boys  had  I  known  them  by  sight  without  names." 


4o6  R.  H.  Quick 


ADVERSARIA   MORALIA 

Conservatism  and  Liberalism 

"5  March,  '74.  The  late  'Conservative  reaction'  has  set 
one  thinking  about  the  tendencies  which  go  by  the  names 
of  conservatism  and  liberalism.  The  true  attitude  of  mind 
must  surely  be  that  of  the  ideal  liberal.  We  are  too  prone 
to  tolerate  what  is  bad,  or  at  least  imperfect,  when  we  might 
attain  to  something  better.  'Let  what  is  broken  so  remain,'  — 
this  is  what  our  laziness  says,  and  says  it  in  a  variety  of 
forms.  I  suppose  J.  S.  Mill,  in  his  celebrated  saying  that 
stupid  people  are  Tories,  meant  that  stupid  people  have  no 
perception  of  ideal  good,  no  energy  of  mind  to  get  beyond 
the  actual  with  which  they  are  in  contact.  But  there  is  a 
liberalism  quite  as  mischievous  and  perhaps  as  stupid,  a  lib- 
eralism which  is  in  love  with  change  as  change,  and  adopts 
the  formula,  '  Whatever  is,  is  wrong. '  During  the  French 
Revolution  there  was  a  lawsuit  about  some  land.  The  party 
in  possession  showed  that  the  land  had  been  in  the  hands 
of  the  family  for  centuries.  '  In  that  case,'  said  the  judge, 
'there  ought  certainly  to  be  a  change,'  and  decided  against 
the  occupant.  As  people  get  on  in  life  they  get  more  and 
more  to  hate  this  sort  of  liberalism.  Moreover,  they  have 
experienced  the  failure  of  many  changes  which  were  ushered 
in  with  a  fanfare  of  trumpets,  and  they  prefer  to  bear  the  ills 
they  have. 

"  For  my  part  I  have  to  struggle  against  the  conservatism 
within  me  that  is  tolerant  of  all  kinds  of  evil.  Just  at  first, 
when  I  get  into  a  new  sphere,  I  see  what  should  be  altered, 
but  I  very  soon  get  accustomed  to  things  as  they  are,  and  I 
generally  (especially  when  I  can  shift  the  responsibility  on  to 
others'  shoulders)  go  on   in  the  usual  way.     '  What  pleasure 


Picturesqueness  of  London  407 

can  we  have  to  war  with  evil?'  and  yet  what  is  there  really 
noble  in  life  except  this  warfare?  Scripture  speaks  of  the 
Christian  as  girding  up  the  loins  of  his  mind  for  this  ever 
renewed  contest.  One  of  the  chief  causes  of  failure  in  my 
life  has  been  that  I  have,  in  Yankee  phrase,  let  things  slide.  .  .  . 
People  who  have  no  personal  aims  are  very  apt  to  do  every- 
thing with  the  weakness  of  amateurs.  They  seem  to  think 
that  everything  they  do  is  so  much  more  than  might  be  ex- 
pected of  them,  and  they  therefore  rest  contented  with  very 
poor  performances.  Men  who  want  to  gain  something  for 
themselves  are  not  so  soon  satisfied. 

"At  Cranleigh  I  very  often  saw  where  things  should  have 
been  altered.  I  hinted  the  alteration  to  Merriman.  He  pooh- 
poohed  it,  and  I  considered  myself  no  longer  responsible  for 
what  was  wrong  and  let  things  slide  as  usual." 

Common  sights  and  a  poetic  atmosphere 

"'It  is  the  very  essence  of  the  idyl  to  set  forth  the  poetry 
which  lies  in  the  simpler  manifestations  of  Man  and  Nature; 
yet  not  explicitly  by  a  reflective  moralizing  on  them,  as  almost 
all  our  idylists  —  Cowper,  Gray,  Crabbe  and  Wordsworth  — 
have  been  in  the  habit  of  doing,  but  implicitly,  by  investing 
them  all  with  a  rich  and  delightful  tone  of  colouring,  perfect 
grace  of  manner,  perfect  melody  of  rhythm,  which,  like  a  gor- 
geous summer  atmosphere,  shall  glorify  without  altering  the 
most  trivial  and  homely  sights.'  C.  Kingsley,  Miscellanies,  i, 
225.  I  should  not  enter  into  this  simile  so  thoroughly  had 
I  not  had  a  singular  sight  once  in  my  life  which  I  can  never 
forget.  One  summer  evening,  before  the  days  of  the  Holborn 
Viaduct,  I  was  driving  in  a  hansom  from  Newgate  Street 
westward.  To  my  astonishment  I  looked  across  the  valley 
from  near  the  prison  (Skinner  Street,  I  think)  and  saw  the 
other  side  with  its  common-place  houses  and  very  common- 
place chimneys  lighted  up  by  the  evening  sun  and  making  a 


4o8  R.  H.  Quick 

most  lovely  landscape,  so  lovely  that  it  impressed  itself  on  my 
mind's  eye  for  life." 

General  inaccuracy  and  ignorance 

"There  is  very  little  accurate  knowledge  in  the  world  about 
anything.  Educated  people  differ  from  uneducated  chiefly  in 
having  ideas,  and  therefore  interests  connected  with  a  much 
wider  range  of  subjects,  and  also  in  their  power  of  using  such 
knowledge  as  they  have.  I  have  lately  met  with  some  odd 
instances  of  ignorance  in  specialists.  When  Lalot  was  cor- 
recting my  dictees  at  Neuilly  he  very  often  had  to  look  out 
words  in  a  dictionary  to  see  whether  a  consonant  was  to  be 
doubled  or  not.  Butler  one  day  found  some  unusual  use  of 
qtiin  in  a  boy's  composition  and  consulted  Hallam  about  it; 
but  neither  the  old  nor  the  young  senior  classic  could  decide 
whether  it  was  allowable.  When  J.  C.  was  with  me  he  was 
translating  to  me  a  piece  of  Caesar  in  which  the  letters  for 
400  {quadringenti')  occurred.  I  didn't  know  the  Latin,  and 
when  I  asked  Nettleship  he  did  not  know  either,  though  one 
of  the  best  Latin  scholars  in  England.  We  are  amazed  at 
the  ignorance  boys  show  in  examinations,  but  I  suspect  some 
marvellous  results  would  come  out  if  we  masters  could  be 
examined." 

Routine 

"This  tendency  to  routine  work  is  the  oddest  thing  I  know 
about  the  ordinary  Englishman.  One  is  never  contented  un- 
less employed,  and  the  employment  must  be  pretty  easy,  so 
that  one  has  not  to  energise  much  or  one  speedily  tires.  But 
what  is  the  consequence  of  thus  letting  off  all  one's  steam 
in  routine  work?  The  work  becomes  mechanical,  and  one 
hardly  asks,  much  less  seeks,  for  higher  truth.  If  I  believed 
in  transmigration  of  souls  I  should  expect  to  work  hereafter 
as  a  turnspit.  All  my  strength  would  then  go  in  doing  what 
a  simple  machine  would  do  better,  and  this  would  be  a  very 


Routine  409 

fitting  result  of  my  present  life,  especially  if  I  were  a  slow  turn- 
spit and  were  bullied  accordingly. 

"What  wonderful  people  we  are!  Without  faith  in  the 
Divine  Will  how  do  we  manage  to  be  happy  even  for  a 
day?  With  faith  how  do  we  manage  to  spend  even  a  day 
carelessly?  The  old  Romans  were  consistent  enough  with 
their  Carpe  diem,  but  it  was  but  a  sorry  business  this  living 
for  to-day.  What  does  the  pleasure  of  the  day  matter  when 
the  day  is  over?  To  be  sure  the  remembrance  of  past  pleas- 
ure may  be  present  pleasure,  but  this  is  not  often  so  if  the 
pleasure  we  remember  be  our  own.  And  in  any  case  a  little 
more  pleasure  or  a  little  less,  what  does  it  matter  when  the 
long  night  comes?  This,  which  one  might  suppose  the  most 
obvious  reflection  in  the  world,  does  not  seem  the  most  ordi- 
nary. There  are  still  found  people  enough  to  keep  up  a 
London  season,  though  perhaps  it  is  not  so  much  after  all 
love  of  pleasure  that  keeps  the  majority  in  bondage  as  it  is 
mere  weakness  of  will.  A  tremendous  force  must  be  neces- 
sary to  enable  a  man  to  give  up,  say  the  army  like  C,  and 
go  in  no  service  but  the  Saviour's  to  Newfoundland,  and  yet 
he  is  no  doubt  a  gainer  even  on  this  side  the  grave. 

■'  I  am  puzzled  to  know  what  St.  Paul  meant  when  he  says 
that,  if  Christians  have  no  hope  except  in  this  life,  they  are 
of  all  men  the  most  miserable.  It  seems  to  me  that  no 
genuine  happiness  is  possible  but  that  which  is  found  in 
seeking  the  happiness  of  others.  And  even  if  St.  Paul  meant 
'the  most  deluded,'  I  doubt  if  people  who  believed  in  non- 
existent happiness  beyond  the  grave  would  be  more  deluded 
than  many  believers  in  happiness  on  this  side  of  it." 

Life  needs  prearrange inetit 

"When  we  say  over  and  over  again  that  we  have  done 
the  things  that  we  ought  not  to  have  done  and  left  undone 
the  things  we  ought  to  have  done,   there  is  often  a  feeling 


4IO  R.  H.  Quick 

of  unreality  about  the  confession.  We  are  not  conscious  of 
wrong  things  done  or  right  things  left  undone,  and  though 
we  think  in  a  general  or  vague  sort  of  way  that  such  things 
might  be  found  on  enquiry,  we  don't  trouble  ourselves  to 
enquire.  The  consequence  is  that  our  life  proceeds  on  a 
low  level,  and  we  make  no  effort  to  lift  it  to  a  higher  one. 
There  is  no  plan  in  our  conduct.  We  are  slaves  to  the 
desire  or  the  apparent  need  of  the  moment,  and  we  are  only 
dimly  conscious  of  things  more  important.  The  business  of 
the  hour  engrosses  us;  and,  if  we  get  a  few  moments  now 
and  then  when  we  escape  from  the  claims  of  petty  occupa- 
tion, we  forget  our  higher  aims  and  intentions  and  catch  at 
some  amusement  or  small  unnecessary  employment  till  our 
leisure  is  over  and  we  begin  to  turn  the  wheel  again.  Occa- 
sionally some  strong  feeling  or  keen  desire  for  an  object  may 
supply  the  place  of  arrangement  and  method  and  render 
conscious  effort  unnecessary;  but  in  ordinary  lives  there  is 
no  such  feeling  or  desire.  In  them,  therefore,  life  cannot  be 
spent  well  without  careful  thought  and  prearrangement.  There 
must  be  a  clear  consciousness  of  aim  and  some  effort  after 
the  prearrangement  of  time  and  some  method  in  seeking  to 
attain  our  ends.  As  I  said,  some  strong  feeling,  religious  or 
other,  will  make  effort  and  method  unnecessary,  but  generally 
lives  spent  without  effort  become  meagre  and  poor.  Time  is 
spent  on  a  host  of  things  which  either  should  not  be  done 
at  all,  or  should  be  despatched  much  more  rapidly.  And 
while  those  things  are  done  which  should  not  be  done,  things 
of  vital  importance  are  neglected  for  want  of  time.  One  would 
gladly  study  great  books  and  thus  associate  with  great  minds, 
but  one  has  not  the  time.  In  spite  of  this  one  reads  a  vast 
amount  of  the  poorest  stuff  as  it  appears,  especially  in  the 
newspapers.  Of  course  the  newspapers  must  be  looked  at, 
but  we  allow  ourselves  to  spend  unlimited  time  over  them 
and  to  read  a  number  of  things  which  are  not  the  least 
worth  reading." 


Theory  v.  Practice  4 1 1 


Hard  work 

"  Lord  Derby  says  that  the  power  of  working  hard  comes 
by  habit,  and  this  I  do  not  for  a  moment  dispute.  Concen- 
tration and  power  of  knocking  off  work  are  to  a  great  extent 
matter  of  habit.  But  the  ainount  of  work  a  man  may  do, 
i.e.  the  number  of  hours  he  may  spend  upon  it  without 
recreation,  depends  upon  his  physique.  Temple,  when  at 
Rugby,  gave  up  his  vacation  to  the  School  Commission  and 
worked  some  twelve  hours  a  day  on  it.  Butler  at  Harrow 
has  at  times,  after  a  hard  day's  work,  spent  the  whole  night 
in  looking  over  prize  compositions.  Such  feats  would  be 
for  me  physical  impossibilities,  and  it  would  be  for  me  as 
sensible  to  attempt  them  as  to  try  to  swim  across  from 
Dover  to  Calais  like  Captain  Webb.  I  am  just  now  in  a 
particularly  vigorous  state  of  health,  yet  when  on  the  strength 
of  this  I  worked  yesterday  six  hours  at  my  lectures  for  Cam- 
bridge, my  head  gave  way." 

Theoretical 

"'Theoretical'  and  'theorist'  are  in  English  common 
terms  of  depreciation,  and  there  is  always  some  truth  at  the 
bottom  of  a  feeling  when  it  is  strong  enough  to  give  a  new 
denotation  to  a  word.  Now  first  of  all  there  seems  a  kind 
of  natural  antithesis  between  saying  and  doing,  and  we  all 
know  that  if  there  is  to  be  a  comparison  between  them, 
practice  must  be  allowed  to  be  much  better  than  precept. 
This  consciousness  is  appealed  to  in  the  Bible,  as  in  the 
parable  when  the  smooth  '1  go.  Sir,'  of  the  son  who  went 
not  is  compared  with  the  rude  'I  will  not'  of  the  son  who 
went.  Also  the  civil  words  'Be  ye  warmed  and  filled'  are 
shown  to  be  worse  than  useless  if  they  take  the  place  of  the 
corresponding  action.     In  these  cases  saying   is  contrasted 


412  R.  H.   Q^iick 

with  willing  to  do.  Often  .saying  is  compared  with  being 
able  to  do.  If  a  man  professes  much,  we  are  apt  to  mis- 
trust his  will  to  serve  us.  If  he  talks  much  of  how  he 
would  do  a  thing,  we  suspect  he  would  not  do  it.  The 
contrast  between  power  and  talking  is  well  brought  out  in 
the  Athenian  story  of  the  two  architects.  Here  we  see  that 
the  power  of  saying  the  right  thing  is  supposed  to  justify  a 
presumption  against  the  speaker's  being  able  to  do  it.  I 
suppose  the  notion  is  that  if  a  man  has  thrown  his  energy 
into  expression,  he  will  not  have  enough  left  for  action;  if 
he  has  become  a  good  orator,  he  is  not  likely  to  have  be- 
come a  good  architect  as  well.  The  mere  fact  of  an  archi- 
tect's proving  that  he  knew  what  ought  to  be  done  should 
certainly  not  be  taken  as  evidence  against  his  being  able  to 
do  it.  At  all  events  we  never  push  our  dread  of  theory  to 
this  extent.  If  a  man  is  a  good  preacher  we  do  not  thence 
infer  that  he  is  a  worse  Christian  than  other  people.  We 
do  not  consider  an  architect  or  a  doctor  or  a  lawyer  to  be 
disqualified  for  the  successful  practice  of  his  profession  by 
having  written  a  good  book  about  it.  We  only  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  a  man  may  have  written  a  good  book  on  archi- 
tecture and  yet  not  be  a  good  practical  architect. 

"  Apropos  of  what  I  have  said  above  I  may  give  an  anec- 
dote told  me  by  C.  M.  She  knew  a  clever  old  doctor  who 
candidly  confessed  that  he  was  not  good  at  diagnosis.  One 
of  her  family  went  to  him  for  some  form  of  skin  disease,  but 
got  rather  worse  than  better  under  his  treatment.  At  last 
she  consulted  a  London  physician,  who  cured  her.  When 
taking  leave  of  her,  the  physician  happened  to  ask  where 
she  lived,  and  said,  'You  have  a  very  clever  doctor  for  the 
skin  in  your  neighbourhood:  I  wonder  why  you  came  to 
me?'  Answer:  'I  was  under  his  care  before  I  came  to  you, 
and  I  got  worse  instead  of  better.'  Doctor:  'That's  very 
odd.  I  have  been  treating  you  according  to  what  I  have 
learnt  from  a  book  of  his.'  " 


Art  and  theory  of  art  413 


Good  ivorkers  may  be  dumb  dogs 

"  Das  ist  ein  schlechter  Arbeitsmann 
Der  nicht  vom  Handwerk  reden  kann." 

"But  in  this  proverb  it  is  assumed  that  the  workman  talks 
from  his  practical  acquaintance  with  the  work.  And  I  am 
by  no  means  sure  that  the  proverb  is  true.  The  following 
instance,  at  all  events,  goes  against  it.  Sterndale  Bennett 
had  on  one  occasion  to  talk  to  a  Ladies'  College  about  his 
trade;  in  other  words  he  had,  according  to  custom,  to  give 
an  opening  lecture.  But  apparently,  great  as  he  was  both  as 
a  composer  and  performer,  he  had  never  let  his  consciousness 
play  round  his  occupation,  and  the  consequence  was  he  had 
nothing  to  say.  I  remember  that  he  recommended  young 
ladies  to  study  harmony  for  the  following  exquisite  reason. 
It  might  happen  to  them  in  the  course  of  their  lives  to  have 
to  try  a  new  pianoforte.  They  would  sit  down  and  try  it  in 
one  key  and  then  would  wish  to  go  to  another  key.  'Now,' 
said  the  Professor,  'if  you  have  not  learnt  harmony  you  will 
not  know  how  to  modulate,  and  you  will  be  driven  to  leave 
off  in  one  key  and  begin  again  in  another. '  Surely,  in  com- 
parison with  this,  the  reasons  for  learning  music  and  dancing 
given  by  the  professors  of  these  arts  in  the  Bourgeois  Gentil- 
homme  are  common  sense  itself." 


Interest  fades  with  lapse  of  time 

"That  mere  lapse  of  time  brings  with  it  loss  of  interest 
is  a  very  important  fact  in  teaching,  and  yet  it  is  very  often 
overlooked.  We  should  remember  that  spaces  of  time  are 
really  much  longer  to  the  young  than  to  us,  so  intervals  that 
seem  short  to  us  may  be  amply  long  enough  for  the  cooling 
of   interest   in   the   young.     At  Harrow   there   used   to  be   a 


414  ^^^-  ^^-   Qii^ick 

lesson  once  a  week  in  Horace.  A  blacksmith,  as  Comenius 
would  say,  might  as  well  let  the  iron  cool  and  heat  it  again 
between  each  stroke.  The  climax  of  absurdity  was  reached, 
however,  in  giving  out  a  set  of  French  compositions  carefully 
corrected  by  the  master  a  week  after  the  boys  had  given 
them  in. 

"In  daily  life  we  have  numberless  proofs  of  the  rapid 
cooling  of  interest.  We  get  a  letter  and  don't  answer  it  at 
once.  If  we  want  to  answer  it  at  all  this  delay  is  a  mistake, 
for  we  fail  to  do  many  things,  not  so  much  for  lack  of  time 
as  for  lack  of  interest,  and  our  stock  of  interest  in  that  letter 
will  be  less  to-morrow  than  to-day,  and  much  less  a  week 
after.  So,  although  it  seems  to  us  that  we  can  as  easily 
answer  the  letter  to-morrow  or  next  week,  that  is  really  a 
fallacy  of  laziness.  If  we  want  to  get  a  notion  how  our  in- 
terests keep  decaying,  we  have  only  to  look  at  an  old  diary 
of  our  own.  Even  if  we  keep  a  record,  not  of  employments 
but  of  thoughts,  we  are  astonished  to  see  how  our  minds  have 
been  estranged  from  our  own  offspring." 

Terrible  familiarity 

"This,  as  Helps  points  out,  is  one  of  the  commonest  ob- 
stacles to  clear  vision.  I  have  at  times  seen  obvious  abuses 
going  on  under  some  high-minded  man  who  might  have  been 
expected  to  check  them  before  he  could  rest  in  his  bed,  and 
yet  they  have  gone  on  year  after  year  and  there  is  no  sign 
of  their  affecting  his  repose.  The  chief  reason  why  they  do 
not  shock  him  is  that  he  is  so  familiar  with  them  that  he 
does  not  see  them  in  their  true  colours.  Very  often  a  new 
headmaster  resolves  to  look  about  him  well  before  he  makes 
any  changes.  This  may  be  desirable  for  many  reasons,  but 
he  should  be  very  careful  not  only  to  look  while  he  can  see, 
but  also  to  note  down  very  carefully  his  first  impressions. 
Every  day  he  tolerates  what  seems  to  him  intolerable,  will 


Interest  and  the   Will  415 

make  it  appear  so  in  a  less  degree,  and  in  the  end  he  may 
jog  on  with  it  very  contentedly. 

"  When  I  first  took  duty  at  the  Workhouse  here  the  sight 
of  the  congregation  moved  me  strangely.  The  half-educated 
faces  of  some  of  the  grown-up  girls  quite  appalled  me,  and 
I  felt  very  sad  when  I  looked  at  the  poor  old  men  whose 
lives  had  been  failures,  and  who  had  now  nothing  to  care 
for  and  no  one  to  be  cared  for  by  on  this  side  the  grave. 
All  sorts  of  reflections  came  into  my  mind  unbidden  when 
I  looked  at  my  congregation;  but  now  I  can  see  nothing  in 
them  that  either  distresses  me  or  affects  me  in  any  way.  I 
can  make  reflections  about  them  if  I  choose,  but  not  a  thought 
of  any  kind  comes  spontaneously." 

Interest  and  the   Will 

"The  springs  of  action  within  us  admit  of  division  into 
two  classes:  (i)  those  that  act  under  the  influence  of  the 
will,  (2)  those  that  act  independently  of  the  will.  The  chief 
department  of  the  will  is  found  in  our  conception  of  duty. 
We  ought  to  do  this  or  that,  and  our  will  accordingly  en- 
deavours to  insist  on  the  action.  But  the  will,  though  a 
tremendous  force,  is  like  the  force  of  steam:  directly  tension 
is  removed  it  ceases  to  act.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that 
other  forces,  in  themselves  quite  insignificant  compared  with 
the  will,  do  in  the  long  run  bring  about  greater  results,  for 
they  act  continuously  without  being  observed,  just  like  a 
current  in  water  or  a  focus  of  attraction.  This  it  is  which 
gives  such  vast  importance  to  what  we  call  interest.  Directly 
the  mind  is  interested  in  any  subject  it  is  ceaselessly  on  the 
look-out  for  whatever  is  connected  with  the  subject,  and  it 
acquires  all  that  is  to  be  known  involuntarily.  As  the  will 
does  not  count  for  much  in  ordinary  people,  we  find  that 
their  knowledge  extends  to  what  interests  them  and  no 
further.     As  their  sphere  of   interest  is  very  limited,   so  is 


4i6  R.  H.  Quick 

their  sphere  of  knowledge.  Sometimes,  indeed,  the  interest 
and  consequent  knowledge  gain  in  intensity  and  accuracy 
from  being  concentrated  on  a  small  area.  The  schoolmaster 
is  provoked  when  he  finds  that  boys  who  'can't  remember' 
anything  in  their  lessons  can  remember  everything  connected 
with  their  games  or  their  homes.  The  schoolmaster,  poor 
man,  has  as  a  rule  a  hard  job  in  hand,  for  he  must  make 
his  boys  acquire  certain  knowledge,  and  as  they  haven't  the 
slightest  interest  in  the  subject,  they  can  learn  only  by  an 
effort  of  will.  But  the  boys,  if  left  to  themselves,  would 
have  as  little  will  as  interest,  so  the  schoolmaster  has  to 
produce  the  will.  This  he  can  do  only  by  fear  of  punish- 
ment, and  this  method  of  course  stimulates  only  the  mini- 
mum of  will  necessary  for  escape,  so  the  knowledge  acquired 
is  of  very  small  amount,  and  worse  still,  is  of  a  kind  which 
is  almost  directly  lost  again.  But  to  leave  the  woes  of  school- 
masters (which  will  probably  never  more  be  mine),  I  remark 
that  the  involuntary  springs  of  action  have  by  far  the  prin- 
cipal part  in  the  lives  of  most  people.  Bacon  assumes  that 
you  may  leave  what  you  like  doing  to  take  care  of  itself,  but 
I  have  never  found  it  so.  Acting  on  his  principle,  I  have 
often  forced  myself  to  work  at  what  I  did  not  like,  and 
have  thus  crowded  out  what  I  did  like,  though  this  was 
quite  as  well  worth  doing,  and  I  should  have  done  it  much 
better." 

dve^erao-Tos  ^io<i 

"The  note-taking  side  of  life  is  the  side  most  neglected. 
The  schoolmaster  says  of  his  boys,  'They  won't  think,'  but 
this  is  true  of  us  all,  the  schoolmaster  included.  We  are 
happy  only  when  we  are  fussing  about  some  work  that  seems 
necessary,  but  whether  it  is  necessary,  and  if  necessary,  whether 
it  is  best  done  as  we  are  doing  it,  we  will  not  be  at  the  pains 
to  inquire." 


Laisscr  a  Her  4 1 7 


Educational  reforms  generally  improvised  expedients 

"i.  3.  87.  Franklin,  after  telling  us  in  his  Autobiography 
how  his  plan  for  federation  was  rejected  for  an  inferior  plan, 
says,  'Those  who  govern  having  much  business  on  their  hands, 
do  not  generally  like  to  take  the  trouble  of  considering  and 
carrying  into  execution  new  projects.  The  best  public  meas- 
ures are  therefore  seldom  adopted  from  previous  wisdom,  but 
forced  by  the  occasion.' 

"  It  would  be  interesting  to  see  how  far  improvements  in 
any  department  of  our  activity  come  of  a  priori  reasoning  or 
'theory, 'and  how  far  they  are  'forced  by  the  occasion.'  The 
English  maxim  is,  'Let  well  alone.'  If  there  is  no  hitch,  be 
contented.  In  this  way  our  education  continued  unaltered 
for  200  years.  But  then  there  came  a  hitch.  Knowledge 
of  modern  languages  seemed  needed,  and  our  teachers  could 
not  give  it.  Still  more,  natural  science  began  to  claim  at- 
tention, and  our  schoolmasters  knew  nothing  about  it.  So 
the  force  of  the  occasion  compels  alterations,  and  at  such 
times  even  theorists  have  some  chance  of  getting  an  audi- 
ence. But  still  what  Franklin  says  is  only  too  true.  Those 
who  have  to  act  are  mostly  too  busy  to  consider  anything 
which  seems  theoretical.  When  a  change  is  necessary  they, 
as  a  rule,  try  to  minimise  it  for  fear  of  throwing  the  machine 
out  of  gear,  so  improvement  comes  slowly,  slowly,  and  such 
changes  as  are  made  are  often  mere  expedients  which  right 
reason  would  not  sanction.  Take  our  elementary  education. 
We  were  dissatisfied  with  it  and  a  clever,  self-confident  man 
comes  with  an  expedient  for  getting  the  three  R's  taught. 
The  expedient  was  a  very  bad  one;  but,  once  established, 
it  stayed  because  no  one  dared  to  start  afresh.  So  there  has 
been  no  end  of  tinkering,  but  no  real  improvement." 
2  E 


41 8  R.  H.   Quick 

Theory 

"  i8.  3.  87.  In  a  conversation  with  F.  T.  (an  artist)  about 
Ruskin's  works  yesterday,  he  remarked  that  he  considered  'all 
theoretical  talk  unprofitable.'  This,  I  take  it,  represents  the 
views  of  most  Englishmen,  and  anything  more  astoundingly 
false  and  mischievous  I  can  hardly  imagine.  It  means  ulti- 
mately that  no  good  can  come  of  the  exercise  of  men's  higher 
powers,  and  that  their  wisest  course  is  to  give  up  thinking 
and  to  keep  on  trying  to  do.  But  why  put  out  the  eyes  of 
our  mind?  They  may  surely  teach  us  truths,  and  useful  truths 
too,  that  the  hands  could  not  find  out  without  them. 

"  There  is  an  old  joke  about  the  German  professor  who  went 
for  years  a  roundabout  way  from  his  house  to  his  lecture- 
room.  When  he  was  getting  old  he  petitioned  to  be  moved 
nearer  to  the  University  buildings,  as  he  could  not  stand  the 
fatigue  of  so  long  a  walk.  A  deputation  was  appointed  to 
wait  on  him  and  show  him  the  straight  road,  and  this  had 
all  the  effect  of  a  change  of  residence.  Some  people  seem 
to  think  that,  by  persisting  long  enough  on  the  circuitous 
route,  they  make  it  the  shortest.  They  may  indeed  get  ac- 
customed to  the  walk,  and  even  improve  their  pace,  but  it 
is  a  roundabout  way  after  all.  No  doubt,  in  trying  to  find 
the  shortest  way  we  may  at  times  get  into  a  blind  alley,  so 
that  instances  do  occur  in  which  the  thoughtful  man  makes 
a  mistake  and  the  thoughtless  goes  right,  but  in  the  long 
run  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  thoughtful  man  has  the 
best  of  it.  'But  theory  is  thought  without  action.'  No,  this 
is  not  the  true  account  of  it.  The  word 'theory  '  is  indeed 
used  in  various  senses,  but  it  is  only  when  theory  is  thought 
bearing  on  action  that  it  becomes  important." 

IVie  Fallacy  of  Self-interest 

"22.  3.  84.  Keeping  the  mind's  eye  clear  is  of  course 
as  much  an  intellectual  as  a  moral  power.      It  is  almost  im- 


Lessing  4 1 9 

possible  to  get  trustworthy  evidence  from  the  uneducated. 
At  the  school  library  I  give  out  the  books  to  the  children 
one  week  in  the  order  of  the  alphabet,  and  the  following 
week  in  inverted  order.  I  have  omitted  to  keep  account 
for  myself,  and  have  asked  them  in  which  order  it  was  last. 
Now  here  is  a  very  simple,  and  by  them  easily  remembered, 
fact.  I  don't  think  the  children  mean  to  give  a  false  an- 
swer, yet  the  same  thing  happens  every  time  I  ask  this  ques- 
tion. k\\  those  whose  names  begin  with  early  letters  of  the 
alphabet  are  positive  that  last  week  I  began  with  the  Z's 
and  vice  versa.  If  I  ask  a  child  whose  name  comes  about 
the  middle,  he  can't  remember  which  it  was." 

Lessing  and  Truth 

"'If  God  held  in  His  right  hand  all  truth  and  in  His 
left  hand  nothing  but  the  ever  active  impulse  to  seek  for 
truth,  even  with  the  condition  attached  that  I  should  per- 
petually go  astray,  and  said  to  me  'Choose,'  I  should  with 
all  humility  grasp  His  left  hand  and  say,  'Give,  Father;  Pure 
truth  is  for  Thee  alone.' 

"With  reference  to  education,  one  is  accustomed  to  main- 
tain that  the  actual  knowledge  given  is  of  trifling  value,  and 
that  the  main  thing  to  think  of  is  desire  of  knowledge  and 
power  to  acquire  it;  but  in  saying  this  one  generally  thinks 
of  knowledge  as  the  thing  to  be  sought  ///  tJie  end.  In  the 
above  passage,  however,  Lessing  makes  knowledge  a  mere 
means.  He  would  have  everybody  labour  for  truth,  but  the 
exercise  is  to  be  in  itself  the  reward.  This  notion,  which 
makes  the  pursuit  of  truth  a  kind  of  fox-hunting,  brings  one 
dangerously  near  to  the  system  of  the  Greek  Sophists.  If 
exercise  is  the  main  thing,  sham  truth  may  serve  the  purpose 
as  well  as  real.  There  seems  to  me  something  absurd  in 
the  notion  that  the  desire  of  truth,  though  accompanied  by 
error,  is  a  better  thing  than  the  possession  of  truth.     Lessing 


420  R.  H.  Quick 

does  not  really  desire  truth,  but  desires  the  desire  of  it. 
But  the  desire  is  impossible  in  the  man  who  would  rather 
have  the  desire  with  error  than  have  the  truth  itself,  for  the 
genuine  desire  must  be,  not  for  the  desire,  but  for  the  truth 
before  all  things. 

"As  one  goes  on  in  life,  one  is  more  and  more  convinced 
that  there  is  very  little  love  of  the  truth  to  be  found." 

Art  of  Living 

"5.  2.  81.  (Guildford  lodgings.)  As  far  as  I  can  see, 
the  great  difficulty  of  life  is  how  to  avoid  laisser  aller.  With 
young  people  the  danger  is  not  so  great:  their  habits  are 
not  so  formed.  They  have  to  do  many  things  which  they 
want  to  do  better  than  they  can  do  them,  and  this  in  most 
cases  involves  some  effort  for  improvement.  Young  peoj)le, 
too,  have  their  ambitions,  and  they  expect  to  attain  to  all 
sorts  of  excellence.  But  after  forty-five  a  man's  way  of  acting 
has  settled  into  a  formed  habit.  He  may  be  conscious  it  is 
not  the  best  possible;  but  it  seems  a  part  of  him,  and  he 
no  more  thinks  of  changing  it  than  of  changing  his  features. 
And  his  ambitions  have  died  out.  He  doesn't  think  of  his 
future  self  as  superior  to  his  present  self.  So  he  doesn't 
feel  his  deficiencies,  and  doesn't  hope  for  improvement.  He 
therefore  tends  to  go  in  a  groove  easily  enough,  perhaps 
pleasantly,  but  without  doing  half  the  good  which  lies  within 
his  power.  A  few  people,  like  the  philosopher  Locke,  study 
an  art  of  living  and  go  on  as  students  of  it  till  the  last, 
but  after  all  there  is  so  very  much  that  we  do  that  seems 
to  admit  of  no  effort  that  we  get  almost  necessarily  to 
act  without  effort  in  everything.  Meals,  for  instance;  the 
young  eat  fast  or  slowly  according  to  some  notion  they  have 
of  the  right  thing,  they  are  tempted  to  eat  more  than  is 
good  for  them,  especially  of  food  they  are  fond  of :  but  all 
this  is  settled  by  habit  for  the  middle-aged  man,  and  I  don't 


Art  of  Living  421 

know  how  Locke  himself  could  have  brought  his  art  to  bear 
upon  his  meals.  Conversation  would  seem  to  offer  a  field 
for  cultivating  an  art  of  living,  but  there  would  be  an  un- 
pleasant restraint  on  conversation  if  the  talkers  were  trying 
to  do  anything  but  communicate  their  passing  thoughts.  In 
choice  of  subjects  we  are  mostly  at  the  mercy  of  chance. 
Few  of  us  have  thoughts  ready  to  communicate,  still  fewer 
can  think  as  they  go  along,  so  we  naturally  fall  into  personal 
talk  when  we  have  a  common  fund  of  interest  and  can  do 
without  much  thinking.  The  only  art  that  seems  to  me 
allowable  in  conversation  is  to  bear  in  mind  that  what  is 
interesting  to  oneself  is  probably  not  interesting  at  all  to 
one's  companion,  and  to  endeavour  to  bring  the  talk  to  a 
common  subject  of  interest;  or,  where  this  is  not  easy,  to 
one  in  which  the  other  party  is  interested,  or  at  least  for  the 
time  to  get  up  some  interest  in  that. 

"As  for  the  work  of  one's  calling,  it  generally  forces  itself 
upon  one  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  little  option  for  effort. 
And  so,  after  all,  it  is  only  what  we  may  call  our  leisure 
time  that  gives  much  scope  for  the  art,  and  we  generally 
muddle  away  this  time  and  do  as  little  with  it  as  with  the 
coppers  in  our  pockets.  Many  of  us  never  have  any  leisure 
time  proper,  i.e.  we  are  not  up  with  our  affairs;  we  are 
always  conscious  of  a  heap  of  things  that  want  doing,  of 
letters  that  want  answering,  &c.  &c.,  and  so  we  seem  to 
have  no  time  to  employ  deliberately  on  some  chosen  occu- 
pation, reading  or  thinking  or  favourite  study;  and  yet  we 
do  not  keep  pegging  away  to  get  abreast  of  our  work.  In 
fact  we  fritter  away  a  great  deal  of  time,  and  our  conscious- 
ness of  work  to  be  done  merely  has  the  effect  of  paralysing 
us  when  we  are  not  working. 

"Some  people  of  strong  will  determine  to  give  so  much 
time  a  day  to  a  particular  pursuit  and  carry  out  their  reso- 
lution; but  with  most  of  us  such  plans  speedily  break  down. 
We  go  on  very  well   for  two  or  three  days,  and  then  some 


42  2  R.  H.  Quick 

trifle  puts  us  out,  a  headache  maybe  or  a  journey,  and  the 
spell  seems  broken  and  our  plan  has  come  to  an  end. 
Goethe  says  that  we  should  read  a  beautiful  poem  and  see 
a  beautiful  picture  every  day  of  our  lives;  but  for  seeing  an 
eye  is  necessary  as  well  as  an  object,  and  in  many  moods 
we  cannot  see  either  poem  or  picture.  I  have  known  men 
with  a  wonderful  faculty  for  putting  off  all  cares  and  worries, 
just  as  Sir  Thomas  More  threw  off  his  official  dress  and 
said,  'Lie  there.  Lord  Chancellor.'  But  ordinary  people 
cannot  do  thus,  and  in  point  of  fact  one  is  not  often  free 
enough  from  the  interests  and  cares  of  one's  daily  life  to 
take  a  trip  to  the  realms  which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo 
hold.  There  are,  as  it  were,  three  worlds,  not  indeed  quite 
distinct,  but  yet  distinguishable,  in  which  our  spirits  live. 
First,  there  is  the  world  of  religious  faith  in  which  everything 
points  to  God;  second,  the  world  of  literature;  third,  the 
world  of  personal  relations  and  interests.  Now  the  third 
should  be  influenced  and  coloured,  so  to  speak,  by  the  first, 
and  it  may  be  affected  by  the  second,  but  there  is  some 
antagonism  between  the  second  and  third.  Some  highly 
gifted  men  are  at  home  in  all  three  worlds;  nay  they  may, 
like  Kingsley,  add  a  fourth.  Kingsley  was  more  at  home  in 
the  world  of  nature,  in  the  physical  universe,  than  some  men 
are  in  their  own  households.  But,  generally  speaking,  those 
who  are  intensely  interested  in  persons  don't  care  for  books, 
and  those  who  fly  to  books  are  somewhat  estranged  from  their 
immediate  surroundings." 

Thinking 

"24.  8.  86.  I  sat  thinking  just  now,  when  the  flies  near 
the  ceiling  caught  my  eye.  First  they  reminded  me  of  days 
nearly  half  a  century  ago,  when  I  used  to  watch  them  darting 
at  one  another  in  the  air,  just  as  they  are  doing  now. 

"The  first   thought   that   this   suggested   was,   How  very 


Thinking  423 

much  more  external  things  are  to  the  young  than  to  the 
old.  Now  these  flies  only  catch  my  eye  by  accident,  and 
would  hardly  be  observed  at  all  if  they  did  not  bring  up 
the  memory  of  old  times.  Then  they  were  intensely  inter- 
esting to  me,  and  I  used  to  sit  or  lie  and  watch  them  for 
the  hour  together. 

"Next  1  was  struck  with  the  permanence  of  Nature  and 
the  apparent  insignificance  of  the  individual.  These  flies  do 
just  the  same  and  look  just  the  same,  and  we  neglect  the 
fact  that  they  are  not  the  same  and  speak  of  them  as  ' ilie 
flies.'  It  is  the  permanence  of  the  function  that  strikes  us, 
the  change  of  the  individual  is  not  important  enough  to  be 
noticed.  If  we  had  nothing  but  natural  religion  to  guide 
us,  surely  we  should  conclude  with  Gray,  'Poor  moralist, 
and  what  art  thou?  A  solitary  fly,'  and  find  out  wisdom  in 
making  ourselves  as  comfortable  as  possible  while  summer 
lasted,  without  troubling  ourselves  about  the  frost,  which  no 
effort  of  ours  could  delay.  So  our  higher  faculties  would 
exercise  themselves  best  in  self-effacement,  and  we  should 
have  reason  to  regret  them  as  much  more  bother  than  profit. 
But  the  'good  news  '  takes  us  out  of  ourselves,  and  tells  us 
to  lose  our  lives  now  with  the  assurance  of  finding  them  both 
now  and  for  ever  through  the  loss." 

Thought  ami  action 

"28.  12.  83.  This  morning  I  have  been  reading  the  two 
lectures  on  India  in  Seeley's  Expansion  of  England.  One 
reflection  of  a  general  kind  is  suggested  to  me.  How  very 
small  a  force  the  intellect  is  in  ordinary  lives !  With  us  the 
statesman  is  not  a  thinker,  but  a  doer,  a  manager,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  that  many  of  the  problems,  immensely  im- 
portant as  they  are,  which  are  here  stated  by  Seeley,  have 
never  been  thought  of  by  us  as  a  nation  or  by  the  leading 
men  who  have  guided  the  fortunes  of  India. 

"It  is  just  the  same  in  all  walks  of  life.     Our  teachers 


424  R.  H.  Quick 

can't  be  induced  to  tJiink  about  their  calling.  Thinking 
seems  to  them  mere  fiddle-faddle,  'theory,'  &c. ;  their  busi- 
ness is  to  be  busy  and  keep  on  doing  something.  They 
would  rather  correct  exercises  for  ten  hours  in  the  tradi- 
tional way  than  think  for  ten  minutes  how  it  would  be  best 
to  correct  them.  The  same  defect  makes  preaching  so  diffi- 
cult. My  own  life  is  not  under  the  influence  of  thought, 
but  of  habit  influenced  by  an  inarticulate  sense  of  duty,  by 
a  desire  for  the  comfort  of  those  about  me,  more  particularly 
of  those  I  love,  and  in  a  remoter  degree,  I  fear,  of  religious 
faith.  Now  all  this  lies  very  much  out  of  the  range  of  the 
intellect;  and,  if  my  head  runs  on  small  concerns  of  daily 
life,  with  little  thought  properly  so  called,  I  have  little  doubt 
that  the  same  is  true  of  the  less  educated  around  me.  But 
for  sermons  one  must  be  in  one  of  three  regions:  (i)  thought, 
(2)  feeling,  (3)  common-place.  I  don't  feel  comfortable  in 
number  (3),  which  is  the  largest  and  most  accessible.  Feeling 
is  not  for  ordinary  occasions,  and  thought  is  a  region  strange 
to  me,  and  stranger  to  those  who  hear  me.  This  absence  of 
thought  prevents  us  advancing  rapidly  in  the  science  and  art 
of  life.  In  the  physical  sciences  every  right  thought  leaves  a 
result  which  is  capitalised  and  becomes  part  of  the  science. 
But  in  the  science  and  art  of  life  we  start  without  capital. 
We  could  not,  if  we  would,  appropriate  the  thoughts  of  good 
men  before  us  as  the  physicists  can;  and,  though  no  doubt 
we  might  gain  much  by  studying  their  thoughts,  we  will  not 
take  the  trouble. 

"Take  teaching.  Not  one  teacher  in  a  thousand  cares  to 
know  what  the  great  thinkers  who  have  turned  their  attention 
to  teaching  have  said  about  it." 

The  art  of  living 

"  18.  5.  83.  To  correct  my  inveterate  habit  of  pottering, 
I  sometimes  take  some  engagement  to  do  a  i)iece  of  work  by  a 
particular  day  in  order  to  put  pressure  on  myself  to  work  at  it. 


The  art  of  living  425 

"  P.  H.  Hamerton,  in  Tlic  Intt'llectual  Life,  has  some  good 
remarks  on  people  who  like  to  be  hurried.  He  says  that  in- 
telligence and  energy  are  beneficially  stimulated  by  pressure 
from  without,  but  that  the  highest  intellectual  work  cannot 
stand  such  pressure.  I  think  Hamerton  does  not  distinguish 
as  he  should  between  different  kinds  of  employment.  Some 
things  are  done  equally  well  whether  we  hurry  or  dawdle; 
others,  though  improved  by  pains,  are  not  improved  enough 
to  make  up  for  the  extra  time  spent,  or  are  not  of  much  value 
even  when  brought  to  perfection.  Writing,  for  instance.  If  I 
took  pains  I  could  write  a  very  fair  hand,  much  better  at  all 
events  than  I  do  write.  I  said  'took  pains,'  I  should  have 
said  'wrote  slowly.'  Pains  one  ought  always  to  take,  but  in 
a  matter  like  writing  one  ought  not  to  give  time  merely  to 
secure  neatness.  The  thing  aimed  at  should  be,  not  neat 
writing,  but  the  fastest  writing  that  one  can  make  easily 
legible." 

Character  judged  by  comparison 

"12  Aug.  '85.  One  is  apt  to  forget  that,  when  we  speak  of 
anything  or  anybody  as  good,  we  have  no  absolute  standard 
and  speak  only  by  some  comparison,  often  made  uncon- 
sciously. The  very  best  man  we  know  we  should  probably 
consider  a  very  indifferent  angel.  This  latent  comparison 
lurks  under  all  adjectives.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  our 
estimate  of  (^///'jy/zvj- often  differs  from  other  people's  estimate 
of  us,  because  we  compare  ourselves  with  those  only  who  are 
much  in  our  minds,  and  the  same  persons  are  not  likely  to 
be  much  in  the  minds  of  others;  e.g.  I  was  thrown  much 
in  early  manhood  with  J.  Llewelyn  Davies.  I  found  myself 
very  inferior  to  him  in  some  respects,  and  have  got  to  look 
upon  myself  as  weaker  in  these  points  than  perhaps  I  really 
am.  Again,  a  natural  standard  of  reference  is  one's  closest 
friend.     From  this  I  have  got  to  think  of  myself  as  rather  a 


426  R.  H.  Quick 

gushing  person.     Perhaps  those  who  introduce  me  into  some 
other  comparison  think  me  cold  and  hard." 

Der  Schlendrian 

"I  had  recently  had  a  parochial  visit  or  two  to  pay  for 
Llewelyn  Davies  in  Mary-le-bone.  As  usual  one  seems  to 
get  a  glimpse  into  a  world  one  was  before  unconscious  of, 
and  will  be  unconscious  of  again  when  the  rift  in  the  cloud 
closes.  Not  having  a  strong  imagination,  I  can  only  con- 
ceive of  what  comes  under  my  immediate  observation,  and 
even  then  the  conception  soon  vanishes.  Coming  fresh  into 
an  occupation  like  visiting  the  poor  or  like  teaching,  one 
always  thinks  that  things  might  be  much  better  done  than 
they  are  done,  and  one  expects  to  do  them  better.  But  the 
fact  is,  things  are  carried  on  by  weary  people,  or  at  least  by 
people  who  have  only  energy  enough  to  get  through  their 
work  somehow,  and  none  to  spare  for  improvements.  Then, 
again,  use  makes  us  accept-  things  without  examining  them. 
Just  as  phrases  with  which  we  are  familiar  lose  their  meaning 
to  us,  so  do  actions.  Old  hands  in  a  school  and  elsewhere 
assume  that  they  have  to  teach  the  new  hands,  and  are  mostly 
unconscious  that  they  might  leani  from  them  too.  The  new 
hand  or  the  interested  outsider  notices  many  a  flaw  to  which 
the  old  stager  has  got  so  accustomed  that  he  can't  discern  it 
or  takes  it  for  a  grace.  I  should  wish  every  new  man  to 
find  fault  freely  and  mention  every  criticism  which  occurred 
to  him.  Many  of  these  will  suppose  a  higher  standard  than 
could  be  maintained,  some  will  be  mistaken  altogether,  some 
will  be  impossible  while  men  have  a  limited  supply  of  energy 
and  interest;  but  they  will  all  tend  to  show  the  old  hand 
that  the  established  routine  is  not  perfectly  worked  and  is 
not  the  best  conceivable.  One  of  the  most  absolute  facts 
in  the  constitution  of  most  people  is  their  utter  inability  to 
conceive  of  the  condition  of  other  people,  or  even  of  their 


Dcr  Schlendriau  427 

own  past  conditions.  ^Mien  I  was  a  boy  I  often  went  by 
the  Wandsworth  steamers,  and  I  used  to  wonder  what  on 
earth  the  crew  could  find  to  talk  about.  Because  I  could 
think  of  nothing,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  they  could  find  noth- 
ing! And  now  at  times  one  has  an  instantaneous  glimpse 
of  a  condition  of  which  the  conception  has  otherwise  been 
lost.  To-day  I  visited  a  house  with  the  knocker  tied  up, 
and  instantly  there  flashed  across  me  a  remembrance  of  the 
state  in  which  every  little  noise  jars  on  the  nerves  and  gives 
torture.     In  health  such  sensitiveness  seems  impossible." 


Restlessness 

"Tedium  has  been  defined  as  a  consciousness  of  time, 
just  as  in  a  morbid  state  one  may  become  conscious  of  the 
throbbing  of  one's  pulse.  Having  to  wait  at  a  railway  station 
is  a  perfect  torment  to  some  people.  For  myself  I  remember 
this  restlessness,  which  was  very  strong  in  me  from  about 
eighteen  to  eight-and-twenty.  There  was  a  constant  craving 
to  get  on  anyhow  or  any  whither,  only  there  must  be  no 
pause.  I  wonder  how  I  should  feel  now  if  I  were  cut  off 
from  books,  writing  materials,  and  companions  for  some 
hours  and  were  not  travelling?  I  should  be  all  right  if 
some  subject  were  buzzing  in  my  head,  as  the  Eastern  Ques- 
tion has  been  lately,  but  without  some  such  subject  on  which 
my  thought  settled  naturally,  I  suspect  I  should  be  bored. 
I  often  grumble  that  I  have  no  time  to  think.  Should  I 
think  if  I  were  condemned  to  solitary  confinement  for  a 
week?  What  went  on  in  men's  minds  when  they  were  shut 
up  in  oubliettes?  What  goes  on  in  the  minds  of  sailors  on 
watch  or  of  sentries?  Do  they  feel  tedium,  or  does  the  mind, 
like  the  body,  accommodate  itself  to  the  conditions  in  which 
it  lives?  " 


428  R.  H.  Quick 


The  La7v  of  Moral  Gravitation 

"Whatever  high  aims  a  man  sets  out  with,  he  constantly 
gravitates  to  lower  aims.  The  statesman  who  begins  by  striving 
for  the  triumph  of  certain  principles  generally  ends  by  thinking 
only  of  the  parliamentary  success  of  his  party  without  the  prin- 
ci])les.  Even  a  clergyman  gets  absorbed  in  his  machinery  and 
thinks  very  little  of  its  effect.  The  schoolmaster,  who  at  first 
had  high  view-s  of  training  his  pupils'  minds  and  developing 
their  powers  and  principles,  thinks  in  the  end  of  nothing  but 
the  Latin  grammar." 


Nature  and  Nurture 

"So  much  rubbish  is  talked  about  following  Nature  that 
one  is  inclined  das  Kind  viit  dem  Bad  auszuschiitten.  But 
on  no  theory,  least  of  all  the  Christian  theory,  would  this  be 
wise.  The  human  educator,  so  far  as  he  comes  up  to  the 
true  idea,  is  like  the  divine  Educator.  We  find  children's 
bodies  are  trained  by  employments  in  which  children  delight. 
Children  are  restless,  so  their  muscles  grow.  They  delight 
in  hallooing,  so  their  chests  and  lungs  gain  strength.  The 
educator  who  recognised  these  facts  and  wished  to  follow  and 
aid  in  this  process  might  take  one  of  two  lines.  He  might 
say,  'The  children's  muscles  and  lungs  must  be  properly  exer- 
cised,' and  so  he  might  institute  a  sort  of  drill  in  running 
and  shouting,  or  he  might  say,  'If  the  children  only  have 
the  opportunity,  they  will  run  and  shout  enough,'  so  all  he 
would  do  would  be  to  provide  the  proper  opportunity.  The 
probability  is  that  the  second  plan  would  be  the  more  suc- 
cessful. But  in  the  schoolroom  we  go  on  a  different  tack. 
One  would  certainly  suppose  that  the  mind,  like  the  body, 
would  be  developed  by  exercise,  and  further  that  it  would 
find  pleasure  in  the  exercise  best  suited  for  it;  but  we  start 
with  the  assumption  that  boys  will  not  like  their  work,  and 


Nature  and  Niirtiire  429 

therefore  we  put  them  through  it  like  a  drill.  ISIight  not  the 
educator  draw  the  minds  of  his  pupils  into  exercises  which 
they  seemed  to  take  to  proprio  viotu  ?  If  he  could  do  this, 
he  would  be  strengthening  minds  as  Nature  strengthens  bodies 
by  running  and  shouting.  But  school-work  at  present  almost 
always  ignores  all  the  faculties  of  the  mind  except  the  faculty 
of  learning  by  heart  or  of  carrying  a  certain  amount  of  in- 
formation. The  consequence  is  that  the  boys'  imagination  is 
exercised,  not  by  the  historian  or  biographer  or  geographer  or 
poet,  but  by  the  novelist.  And  the  analytical  and  reasoning 
powers  are  hardly  exercised  at  all.  All  the  reformers,  I  may 
say  all  the  writers  on  education,  keep  on  urging  the  drawing 
the  faculties  of  the  mind  into  exercise,  but  it  is  one  thing  to 
urge  it  and  another  to  do  it.  What  I  have  always  found  is 
that  the  kind  of  truth  which  interests  my  mind  does  not  in- 
terest boys.  I  shrewdly  suspect  that  the  only  thing  wanting 
is  somehow  to  get  the  boys'  minds  at  work  upon  it- — but 
how?  Suppose  we  are  at  work  upon  one  of  the  Parables. 
I  feel  an  interest  in  seeing  how  far  the  facts  in  the  Parable 
are  significant,  and  in  comparing  some  parables  like  that  of 
the  Sower,  where  all  the  facts  are  significant  throughout  witli 
that  of  the  Unjust  Judge,  where  one  point  only  runs  parallel 
to  the  truth  taught.  But  my  boys,  though  some  of  them 
would  listen  to  what  I  said  about  this  and  would  perhaps 
reproduce  it,  care  no  more  about  it  than  if  it  were  abstruse 
logic.  When  I  took  boys  in  Shakespeare  I  utterly  failed  to 
interest  them  in  the  least.  They  didn't  understand  much, 
and  didn't  want  to  understand  more;  so  the  lesson  was  a 
bore  to  them  and  to  me.  On  the  other  hand,  a  lesson  in 
a  foreign  language  gives  something  definite  to  do,  and  when 
it  is  tolerably  easy  the  thing  goes  pretty  smoothly.  I  liave 
even  succeeded  in  making  a  language  lesson  fairly  interesting 
to  small  boys  and  beginners,  but  with  the  boys  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  more  advanced  1  find,  as  usual,  that  the  nuances 
which  interest  me  have  no  attraction  for  them." 


430  ^-  Jf-   Quick 


Interest  in  one's  oiuji  notions 

"In  the  late  discussions  about  statutes  (Dec.  '71)  I  was 
more  struck  tlian  ever  with  the  interest  each  man  took  in 
the  grievance  he  himself  had  perceived  and  brought  out,  and 
the  little  interest  he  took  in  the  grievances  which  his  neigh- 
bour pointed  out.  Each  admitted  that  the  other  men  were 
right  and  each  was  ready  to  cooperate  with  the  others,  but 
no  man  went  heart  and  soul  into  any  point  but  his  own. 
In  the  same  way  Abbott  sees  some  defects  in  our  primary 
education.  I  agree  with  him,  and  see  a  point  of  my  own. 
He  agrees  in  this,  but  I  am  much  more  interested  in  the 
matter  I  have  seen  for  myself  than  in  what  Abbott  has  i)ointed 
out  to  me  and  vice  versa.  This  seems  universal.  It  is  seldom 
indeed  that  you  can  get  anyone  to  take  up  heartily  what  they 
have  not  themselves  originated.  This  applies  to  education. 
^\'hat  boys  make  out  for  themselves  and  feel  to  be  their  own 
is  likely  to  remain  theirs,  but  if  the  teacher  communicates 
his  thoughts  the  boys  may  possibly  understand  them,  but 
they  will  not  adopt  them.  I  suppose  the  people  of  great 
influence  are  those  who  can  lead  others  to  see  things  for 
themselves,  or  who  can  feel  things  in  such  a  way  that  other 
people  must  adopt  them." 


JVaste  of  Life 

"When  one  sees  anything  of  family  life,  one  is  impressed 
terribly  with  the  amount  of  waste  there  is  in  people's  lives. 
A  good  deal  which  seems  to  an  outsider  waste  is  indeed 
unavoidable,  and  we  cannot  rightly  apply  the  word  to  it. 
We  see  an  orchard  burst  out  into  bloom  in  the  spring.  The 
beauty  of  the  blossom  is  a  kind  of  fruit,  is  at  all  events  a 
gain  in  itself,  like  the  grace  and  enjoyment  of  young  lives, 
but  the  blossom  and  the  grace  and  the  happiness  are  soon 


Waste  of  Life  431 

over,  and  therefore  we  cannot  rest  in  them  but  must  look 
for  something  beyond.  Some  of  the  blossom  (sometimes  all) 
is  nipped  by  frost,  and  even  of  the  apples  which  approach 
perfection  many  never  reach  it.  A  high  wind  may  tumble 
half  of  them  when  they  are  but  half  grown.  Thus  there  are 
few  that  ever  come  to  perfection.  In  our  own  lives  too  many 
of  our  days  yield  no  fruit,  and  that  from  causes  we  cannot 
control;  but  what  a  fearful  amount  of  waste!  How  many 
people  seem  to  have  no  object  except  to  get  through  life 
somehow,  and  with  as  little  discomfort  as  may  be.  And 
those  who  wish  to  do  useful  work  are  often  kept  from  it  by 
feebleness  of  will  and  all  sorts  of  small  hindrances.  Family 
life,  and  far  more  social  life,  seems  to  me  full  of  waste. 
People  come  to  see  you,  and  the  only  thing  is  how  to  get 
through  the  time.  Commonplaces  that  nobody  wants  to  hear, 
music  that  everyone  would  gladly  avoid  hearing,  are  used 
simply  to  kill  the  time." 

Each  in  his  owti  narro^v  cell 

"  How  thoroughly  each  man  is  engrossed  by  his  own 
thoughts  and  his  own  doings,  and  how  little  we  care  for 
the  thoughts  and  doings  even  of  our  most  intimate  asso- 
ciates !  This  is  a  lesson  one  learns  of  course  from  others, 
and  is  unconscious  of  in  one's  own  case;  e.g.  G.  H.  W, 
throws  himself  into  writing  a  Greek  inscription  for  a  prize 
and  rushes  to  me  to  admire  it,  though  he  knows  I  could 
not  construe  it  without  help,  and  can't  in  any  case  be  a 
judge  of  its  merits;  yet  anything  that  interests  him  so  in- 
tensely must,  he  thinks,  be  interesting  to  others.  But  to-day 
at  breakfast,  when  I  told  him  that  there  was  a  short  letter 
of  mine  in  the  Times,  though  he  had  the  Times  beside  him, 
he  did  not  even  turn  to  it  to  see  what  the  letter  was  about, 
and  it  is  a  great  chance  if  he  ever  does.  It's  odd  that  what 
the   Times  people  think  interesting  on  general  grounds,   my 


432  R.  H.  Quick 

most  intimate  associate  does  not  think  worthy  of  a  glance  on 
general  and  personal  grounds  put  together." 

Energy  and  Genius 

"'Genius,'  says  Matthew  Arnold,  following  Carlyle,  'is 
an  affair  of  energy.'  Both  seem  to  look  on  genius  as  mere 
force,  which  may  be  applied  in  any  direction.  This  surely 
requires  great  modification.  Frederick  II  of  Prussia  and  the 
first  Napoleon  had  boundless  energy  that  perhaps  made  them 
geniuses;  but  Frederick  failed  in  literature,  and  so  probably 
would  Napoleon  if  he  had  attempted  that  line.  Then  again, 
Coleridge  was  a  genius,  but  his  friends  would  have  smiled 
had  anyone  spoken  of  him  as  a  man  of  energy.  In  his  case 
he  had  force  enough;  he  had  a  restless  intellect,  but  the 
force  was  not  under  his  control,  he  had  no  power  of  will. 
Some  men  seem  to  have  immense  power  of  action  but  no 
natural  inclination  to  action;  they  must  energise  to  call  their 
power  out.  Dr  Johnson  was  a  man  of  this  kind.  In  spite 
of  M.  Arnold  and  Carlyle,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  crea- 
tive genius  differs  in  kind  from  ordinary  people's  faculties. 
But,  putting  creative  genius  aside,  we  find  that  the  world  is 
ruled  by  energy.  What,  then,  should  people  do  who  are  the 
very  reverse  of  geniuses  in  this  respect,  people  who  have 
neither  an  innate  impulse  to  think,  nor  a  restless  energy, 
nor  a  strong  will  which  enables  them  to  energise  in  any  di- 
rection—  people  like  myself,  <?.^.  ?  The  only  thing  for  them 
is  very  carefully  to  husband  the  little  force  they  have  and  to 
apply  it  in  the  best  direction.  If  by  circumstance  or  choice 
they  have  much,  or  even  a  moderate  amount  of  routine  work, 
they  must  become  mere  social  machines,  for  all  their  force 
will  go  into  their  routine  work.  If  such  a  man  has  a  wife 
and  family;,  I  suppose  his  force  goes  off  in  family  matters. 
But  if  he  can  keep  himself  free  from  these  things,  which 
would   be    load    enough  for  him,  though  a  stronger  animal 


TJic  love  of  Tntth  '         433 

might  be  hardly  conscious  of  it,  he  may  then  look  about 
him  and  occasionally  give  a  useful  hint  to  the  workers.  But 
Englishmen  are  never  contented  unless  they  are  doing  rou- 
tine work,  they  believe  in  nothing  else.  So  I  have  gone  on 
grinding  away  through  the  best  half  (and  how  much  more 
perhaps!)  of  my  working  life,  and  it  seems  absurd  for  me  to 
set  up  as  a  thinker  and  theoriser." 

The  love  of  truth 

"Our  Lord  Himself  has  said,  *Ye  shall  know  the  truth, 
and  the  truth  shall  set  you  free.'  Bacon  says  that  the  wooing 
of  truth  and  the  possession  of  truth  form  the  sovereign  good  of 
human  nature.  But,  speaking  generally,  no  one  wants  the 
truth  as  such.  Everyone  values  his  knowledge  or  belief  as 
a  piece  of  private  property. 

*  To  observations  which  ourselves  we  make 
We  grow  more  partial  for  the  observer's  sake,' 

says  Pope,  and  this  desire  to  have  Etivas  Apartes,  this 
feeling  of  Touchstone's  when  he  says,  'A  poor  thing,  Sir,  but 
my  own,'  is  much  stronger  than  the  love  of  truth.  This 
feeling  underlies  most  sectarianism.  Supposing  anybody  were 
to  tell  V.  a  scientific  fact  that  made  against  something  in 
Genesis,  V.  would  receive  it  with  delight,  but  if  it  made 
the  other  way  he  would  pooh-pooh  it.  It  is  not  the  truth 
about  Genesis  that  he  wants  supported,  but  his  opinion  about 
Genesis.  Of  course  it  is  just  the  same  with  almost  all  parties, 
Roman  Catholic  or  Protestant,  scientific  or  supernaturalist. 
I  suppose,  if  a  man  cared  about  truth,  he  would  be  glad  when 
anyone  showed  him  he  had  been  in  error;  but,  as  it  is,  you 
cannot  annoy  a  man  more  than  by  proving  him  in  the  wrong. 
The  man  is  no  more  grateful  to  you  than  he  would  be  if  you 
proved  his  so-called  Raphael  a  copy.  This  assertion  of  the 
£go  sometimes  takes  the  oddest  forms.     'Every  Englishman 

2F 


434 


R.  11.   Quick 


has  a  right  to  his  opinions. '  So  he  has  a  right  to  shut  his  eyes 
when  he  is  crossing  Cheapside,  and  yet  it  never  strikes  him 
that  one  right  is  just  as  valuable  as  the  other.  I  have 
known  self-assertion  show  itself  in  mispronouncing  words. 
The  speaker  knew  that  persons  quite  sure  to  be  right  pro- 
nounced them  one  way,  and  this  gave  a  special  gusto  to  his 
pronouncing  them  differently.  The  pronunciation  was  then 
his,  and  he  felt  he  was  asserting  himself  every  time  he 
used  it." 

The  personal  equation  in  truth 

"Above  I  have  spoken  of  the  power  of  the  ego.  One 
sees  it  in  literature.  J.  H.  Newman  says,  in  his  sermon  on 
'Unreal  Words,'  that  literary  men  are  allowed  to  say  strong 
things  without  offence,  because  people  feel  that  literature  is 
divorced  from  action,  and  so  understand  that  the  writer  does 
not  mean  what  he  says  to  be  taken  altogether  in  earnest. 
It  is  certainly  the  fact  that  literary  men  may  and  do  write 
strong  things  without  offence,  but  I  doubt  if  Newman's  ex- 
planation is  the  true  one.  'Behold  how  great  a  matter  a 
little  fire  kindleth,'  says  St  James,  but  in  the  intellectual 
world  we  often  find  that  a  great  deal  of  fire  fails  to  kindle 
a  very  little  matter.  The  writer  thinks  of  something  and 
gets  to  take  a  personal  interest  in  it.  He  is  sure,  not  only 
of  its  truth,  but  of  its  extreme  importance.  He  sees  all  sorts 
of  consequences  that  must  result  from  its  announcement,  and 
expects  that  it  will  be  warmly  welcomed  by  one  party  and  as 
warmly  opposed  by  the  other.  He  has  put  his  torch  to  the 
men  of  straw  expecting  a  blaze,  and  he  might  as  well  have 
put  it  to  a  man  of  snow  instead.  Of  course  I  am  not 
speaking  merely  of  my  own  experiences;  these  might  easily 
have  deceived  me,  and  1  might  easily  have  taken  heat  for 
light:  but  I  have  observed  great  literary  artists  far  over- 
estimate the  effect  that  they  expected   from  their  writings. 


.The  subjective  element  in    Truth  435 

Sometimes  (very  rarely)  a  writer  produces  a  conflagration 
greater  than  he  could  have  anticipated.     This  was  no  doubt 

the  case  with  S .      But,   with  all  his  marvellous  literary 

skill,  he  can  do  nothing  of  the  kind  again.  I  remember  he 
anticipated  a  stir  from  something  he  was  about  to  publish 
on  the  Universities.  He  might  as  well  have  written  on  the 
court  and  camp  of  Esarhaddon.  Lately  he  has  tried  his 
hand  again  at  the  old  subject,  but  nobody  seems  to  have 
attended.  Preachers  who  have  none  of  the  arts  of  popu- 
larity, find  that  when  they  have  been  preaching  what  seemed 
to  them  full  of  life  and  fire,  nothing  of  this  has  been  felt 
by  their  audience;  and  perhaps,  if  they  look  at  their  own 
sermon  after  it  has  got  cold,  they  wonder  themselves  how 
they  could  ever  have  been  so  interested  in  it.  Truth,  then, 
is  interesting  as  a  rule  only  when  we  regard  it  as  our  per- 
sonal property.  The  ego  crops  up  everywhere.  Of  this  the 
writer  becomes  aware  if  he  touches,  however  delicately,  on 
any  personal  matter.  So  long  as  his  remarks  are  general, 
nobody  will  care  much  what  he  says;  but  if  he  speaks  of 
living  persons,  he  may  be  quite  sure  that  somebody  will  care." 

Advantage  of  not  being  able  to  do  thhigs 

"This  would  not  be  a  bad  subject  for  an  essay.  Fawcett, 
had  he  not  lost  his  sight,  might  have  been  nothing  but  a  re- 
spectable country  squire  or  J. P.  This  is,  to  be  sure,  doubt- 
ful, for  he  must  have  had  a  strong  will  to  overcome  difficulties, 
as  he  has.  Still,  if  to  the  blind  wisdom  is  at  one  entrance 
quite  shut  out,  it  is  not  wisdom  only  that  is  shut  out.  .A 
thousand  distractions  are  kept  off  also,  and  the  mind  can 
work  up  the  materials  it  has,  and  is  not  buried  beneath  the 
heap  like  the  girl  in  the  Roman  story,  who  was  crushed  by 
what  she  had  bargained  for.  I'he  light  of  day  hides  from 
us  the  stars.  Generally  speaking,  illness  disables  mind  as 
well  as  body,  but  when  this  is  not  the  case  it  often  seems  a 


436  R.  H.  Quick 

clear  gain.  If  I  am  sound  in  body  and  mind,  I  probably 
spend  most  of  my  time  in  doing  things  which  are  not  worth 
doing,  and  going  here  and  there  with  little  or  no  occasion. 
The  day  seems  over  before  it  has  well  begun.  But  when 
I  sprained  my  ankle  the  days  seemed  all  of  a  sudden  to 
be  good  long  days  again  like  the  days  of  childhood,  and  I 
had  time  for  reading  and  writing  and  thinking.  We  common- 
place people  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  fritter  away  our 
time.  The  consequence  is  that  while  we  do  what  it  is  our 
business  to  do,  we  never  carry  out  anything  else,  we  do  not 
work  at  it  continuously;  we  take  up  this  or  that,  but  it  comes 
to  nothing  because  we  do  not  give  it  continuous  attention. 
Any  man  who  devoted  himself  to  a  good  work,  as  a  com- 
mon parish  doctor  devotes  himself  to  the  poor  for  ^200 
a  year,  would  be  thought  a  great  philanthropist.  Carlyle 
sneers  at  Howard  and  says,  'What  was  there  so  very  ad- 
mirable in  his  prison  visiting?  He  had  nothing  else  to  do, 
and  many  a  doctor  does  just  as  much.  You  don't  call 
every  doctor  a  hero  who  works  night  and  day  among  his 
patients  when  the  cholera  or  smallpox  is  raging.'  True 
enough,  and  yet  there  must  have  been  something  remarkable 
about  Howard,  for  the  common  man  may'  become  such  a 
doctor,  but  he  cannot  become  a  Howard." 

Truth 

"26.  5.  83.  If  one  were  attacked  by  a  robber  intent  on 
taking  one's  life,  and  if  one  had  a  pistol  in  one's  pocket,  one 
would  speedily  produce  it  and  point  it  at  the  robber.  We 
should  no  doubt  prefer  the  pistol  to  be  loaded.  It  would 
serve  our  turn  better,  for  if  the  man  came  on  we  might 
'prevent  any  such  intention.'  But  if  the  pistol  were  not 
loaded,  it  would  be  far  better  than  none;  for  the  robber 
might  think  it  was  and  slink  away,  in  which  case  the  sham 
weapon  would    have   answered   just   as  well    as  a  real   one. 


Individuals  and  classes  437 

"Now  this,  I  think,  represents  fairly  enough  most  people's 
regard  for  truth.  They  like  truth  certainly,  if  it  will  serve 
their  purpose;  nothing  indeed  is  so  good  as  the  truth  if  it 
will  do  what  they  wish;  but  it  is  not  truth  they  want,  but  a 
weapon  or  a  tool  or  a  something  or  other  to  do  this  or  that 
with.  So  long  as  they  can  get  the  thing  done, /^/^  uiipoiie 
rechelle;  the  unloaded  pistol  does  just  as  well  as  the  loaded. 
The  Englishman's  aims  are  always  active,  not  speculative,  so 
truth  as  such  is  little  valued  by  us. 

"After  all,  I  suppose,  even  Locke  would  have  admitted 
that  there  are  circumstances  when  it  is  better  not  to  know 
the  truth;  and  circumstances  where,  when  we  know  it,  we 
are  not  justified  in  telling  it.  If  a  novice  had  to  descend 
from  an  Alpine  height  by  a  narrow  path,  he  would  probably 
be  safe  enough  if  he  were  in  a  mist  and  could  only  see  for  a 
few  yards;  but  if  the  mist  cleared  off  and  he  saw  the  precipice 
below  him,  he  would  get  giddy  and  break  his  neck." 


Individuals  and  classes 

"In  practice  we  think  of  ourselves  and  those  nearest  to 
us  only  as  individuals,  not  as  forming  units  of  a  class.  Every 
man's  good  qualities  and  bad  qualities  we  consider  as  his  own 
and  impute  praise  and  blame  accordingly,  though  perhaps  the 
good  or  bad  thing  belongs  not  so  much  to  the  individual  as 
to  the  class. 

"There  was  something  very  striking  in  the  manner  of  an 
old  friend  of  mine  who  has  now  been  some  years  in  the 
silent  world,  and  I  remember  feeling  almost  annoyed  when 
a  brother  of  hers  returned  from  India  and  I  found  his  man- 
ner was  just  the  same.  What  annoyed  me  was  that  I  found 
what  I  had  supposed  part  of  the  very  self  of  my  friend  was 
simply  an  attribute  of  the  family,  like  the  surname. 

"Individualism    seems   at    its    highest   point    in    modern 


438  R.  II.  Quick 

England.      Ihe  Jews  in  tlie  O.   T.  are  hardly  ever  addressed 
as  individuals;  they  are  regarded  simply  as  the  nation." 

Indiviilualism 

"  K).  12.  86.  Most  of  our  acts  are  as  much  settled  for  us 
as  the  shape  and  colour  of  our  clothes.  Take,  e.^t;^.,  church- 
going.  We  belong  to  a  church  going  class  or  we  do  not, 
and  we  go  or  do  not  go  accordingly.  Even  our  beliefs  and 
opinions  are  not  the  result  of  our  investigations.  We  assume, 
of  course,  that  they  correspond  with  the  objective  truth,  but 
why  should  we  think  so?  We  know  these  beliefs  and  opinions 
would  have  been  very  different  if  we  had  been  brought  up  in 
France  or  Italy  or  Russia.  Is  it  likely  that  the  beliefs  and 
opinions  current  here  are  the  sole,  or  even  the  very  best,  em- 
bodiments of  the  truth?  So,  in  spite  of  the  rubbish  he  is  apt 
to  talk  about  'private  judgment,'  the  Protestant  Englishman 
marches  along  in  the  ranks  and  gives  little  play  to  individu- 
alism. And  if  he  could  'leave  the  army'  (which  he  can't), 
he  would  be  a  poor,  helpless  creature  and  be  lost  in  the 
desert.  Even  in  matters  where  we  acknowledge  our  indi- 
vidual responsibility  we  practically  seek  to  escape  it  by  doing 
'what  people  usually  do.'  I,  for  instance,  doubt  whether  the 
relation  of  master  and  servant  is  not  too  much  the  'cash 
payment  nexus.'  I  had  views  on  this  subject  when  I  was  a 
young  man  and  propounded  them  to  my  father,  who  an- 
swered me  that  when  I  was  older  I  should  know  better.  I 
am  older  now,  and  I  don't  know  better;  but  I  know  that, 
unless  you  are  a  person  of  very  strong  convictions  and  strong 
will,  your  treatment  of  servants  is  settled  for  you  by  the  class 
to  which  you  belong,  and  you  are  pretty  certain  to  adopt 
laisser  faire.  Even  in  the  matter  which  interests  me  most 
nearly,  the  bringing  up  of  children,  I  don't  find  myself 
breaking  away  much  from  use  and  wont.  We  must  march 
along  and  engage  the  enemy,  not  as  individuals,   but  as  an 


Controversy  439 

army.  Still,  as  in  modern  warfare  there  is  some  scope  for 
individuality,  and  there  is  some  difference  between  a  good 
soldier  and  a  bad  one,  between  the  man  who  makes  a  study 
of  his  calling,  employing  all  his  faculties  in  it,  and  the  man 
who  just  does  what  all  about  him  do.  The  first  may  im- 
prove; the  second  cannot." 


Controvey-sy 

"27.  3.  84.  Locke  gives  some  advice  for  lengthening 
life.  I  forget  whether  he  says  'Avoid  controversy,'  but  he 
might  say  it.  I  had  a  controversy  with  Ridding,^  in  which 
Ridding  seemed  to  me  to  cut  a  very  poor  figure.  'I'alking 
to  Hart  the  other  day.  Hart  said  of  Ridding,  'Well,  at  all 
events,  he  can  write.'  'I  thought,'  said  I,  'that  was  just  the 
thing  he  could  not  do.'  'Oh,  yes,'  said  Hart,  'don't  you 
remember  his  letter  about  training  of  teachers?'  Hart  had 
entirely  forgotten  my  share  in  the  controversy,  and  remem- 
bered only  how  clever  Ridding's  writing  had  been  on  that 
occasion.  Of  course  Ridding  had  written  on  what  Hart  con- 
sidered the  right  side,  so  Hart  thought  what  he  said  excel- 
lent. Nothing  said  on  the  other  side  was  even  remembered. 
This  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  goes  on  in  most  controversies. 
No  matter  what  you  say,  you  are  sure  to  be  thought  well  of 
by  the  people  who  hold  your  opinions,  and  you  make  no 
impression  at  all  on  the  opposite  party. 

"I  have  just  had  a  good  instance  of  the  absurdity  of 
controversy.  I  ask  a  bookseller  for  explanation  of  a  certain 
charge.  He  takes  me  for  one  of  the  public,  and  sends  me 
an  explanation  which  is  none  at  all.  I  foolishly  resolve  to 
show  him  I  know  better  than  that,  and  write  again.  He  re- 
plies angrily  and  sarcastically.  Of  course  his  sarcasm  seems 
to  me  ridiculous,  and  nobody  else  will  ever  see  it.     By  making 

1  The  present  Bishop  of  Southwell. 


440  R.  H.   Quick 

him  angry  I  have  closed  his  mind  to  the  truth  of  anything  I 
have  said  or  could  say.  I  am  inclined  to  write  again,  but 
see  on  reflection  that  it  would  be  mere  waste.  I  hope  never 
to  engage  in  controversy,  even  in  conversation,  unless  both 
parties  are  trying  to  get  at  the  truth." 

What  leads  to  distinction  and  eminence 

"There  are  two  forces  by  which  people  become  remark- 
able, and  in  extreme  cases  eminent;  perhaps  one  might  say 
three,  though  the  boundaries  are  not  very  well  defined.  First, 
people  become  remarkable  by  having  strong  interests;  e.g.  I 
have  known  a  man  who  took  a  strong  interest  in  tramps.  It 
was  assignable  to  no  particular  cause.  The  man  was  not  a 
philanthropist,  and  had  no  particular  desire  to  improve  the 
condition  of  tramps  in  any  way,  but  he  took  an  interest  in 
that  phase  of  life,  and  this  interest  led  him  almost  irresistibly 
to  investigate  it.  A  strong  interest  of  this  kind  must  make 
a  man  remarkable,  for  he  acquires  a  good  deal  of  accurate 
knowledge  on  an  out-of-the-way  subject.  Buffon  has  said 
that  genius  is  nothing  but  a  power  of  taking  pains,  and  in- 
terests give  this  power.  Certainly  the  chief  characteristics  of 
a  man  are  his  interests,  and  he  is  strong  in  proportion  to 
the  strength  of  these  interests,  and  wise  according  to  their 
direction.  Interests  lead  to  all  kinds  of  involuntary  action. 
But  some  people  have  an  innate  energy  prior  to  interest, 
and,  though  of  course  taking  its  direction  from  interests, 
capable  of  working  without  them.  To  such  men  the  pleas- 
ure of  energizing  is  so  great  that  anything  they  take  up 
becomes  interesting  to  them.  Such  men  cannot  help  being 
a  force  in  whatever  circumstanes  they  are  placed,  and  be- 
come remarkable  or  eminent  according  as  they  affect  a  small 
area  or  a  large.  The  third  force  is  the  will  itself.  Strong 
will  is,  I  take  it,  the  most  unusual  distinction  of  the  three. 
It  is  wonderful  how  insignificant  a  part  the  will  plays  in  the 


Ambition  441 

lives  of  most  cf  us.  When  we  have  no  interests  to  guide 
us,  no  natural  restlessness  to  keep  us  going,  and  where 
occupation  is  not  afforded  by  the  exigencies  of  life,  we  fall 
into  inanition." 

Ambition 

"We  often  hear  about  a  'noble  ambition,'  and  it  is  an 
understood  thing  that  a  noble  ambition  cannot  be  a  selfish 
ambition,  but  I'm  not  sure  that  ambition  does  not  connote 
selfishness.  Clarkson,  say,  has  a  keen  desire  to  free  the 
slaves,  but  this  cannot  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  be 
called  ambition.  I  suppose  ambition  is  the  desire  to  dis- 
tinguish oneself.  If  one  desires  to  be  distinguished  only  by 
what  is  good,  this  may  be  called  a  noble  ambition.  If  one 
longs  to  distinguish  oneself  anyhow,  this  is  selfish  ambition. 
But  if  a  man  does  not  care  about  being  distinguished,  he 
cannot  be  called  ambitious;  and  yet  he  may,  from  a  desire 
to  do  good,  take  the  same  line  of  action  as  if  he  were  am- 
bitious. But  alas !  directly  we  cease  to  have  any  view  to 
personal  gain,  we  are  at  once  in  danger  of  being  paralysed 
by  don't-care-ism.  We  wish  the  welfare  of  others,  and  we 
think  we  see  something  we  could  do  for  them,  so  we  set 
about  it.  But  there  is  a  sad  want  of  energy  in  our  endeav- 
ours, and  at  the  least  check  we  give  up  in  disgust,  saying, 
if  people  won't  be  helped  we  can't  help  it.  Take,  e.g.,  a 
man  who  wants  to  'come  before  the  public'  I  fancy  I 
know  of  such  a  man.  He  settles  upon  a  useful  reform,  and 
keeps  preaching  it  in  the  newspapers  till  he  gets  something 
done.  The  public  is  benefited  and  so  is  he.  But  when  I 
see  a  good  thing  I  make  one  or  two  efforts  to  bring  it  to 
people's  notice.  These  fail,  and  as  I  have  no  personal  motive 
to  spur  me  on,  I  give  up.  Unpaid  labour  may  be  good,  but 
it  is  apt  to  be  spasmodic  and  therefore  less  effective  than  paid 
labour,  which  keeps  pegging  away." 


442  J^'  H.  Quick 

Tedium 

"25.  10.  79.  At  to-day's  lecture  papers  were  brought  me 
from  my  class  in  answer  to  the  question,  'What  is  tedium? 
Give  instances  from  your  own  experience  in  the  school-room. 
What  remedies?'  Only  fifteen  gave  in  answers,  and  these 
were  not  remarkable.  The  English  in  two  or  three  cases  is 
deplorable,  and  there  were  several  instances  of  bad  spelling. 

"The  question  was  suggested  by  an  article  that  appeared 
some  years  ago  in  the  Spectator,  'What  is  tedium?'  The 
Spectator  says  it  is  the  consciousness  of  time.  We  ought  to 
be  as  unconscious  of  the  lapse  of  time  as  we  are  of  the 
ticking  of  the  clock.  If  the  duration  of  time  keeps  forcing 
itself  upon  our  notice,  if  time  seems  to  go  slowly,  and  we 
long  to  put  the  clock  on,  this  state  of  feeling  is  tedium. 

"  But  a  feeling  of  restlessness  and  a  desire  to  hurry  the 
clock  may  come  from  two  causes:  first,  we  maybe  dissatis- 
fied with  present  circumstances;  second,  we  may  be  expecting 
something  that  we  much  wish  for.  We  will  suppose  a  number 
of  boys  are  in  school.  One  of  the  boys  generally  likes  that 
particular  lesson,  but  on  the  day  we  are  considering  he  ex- 
pects his  father  at  12  o'clock  to  take  him  out  for  a  pleasure 
trip.  So  the  time  seems  to  him  to  go  slowly.  Another  knows 
he  will  be  flogged  at  12  o'clock,  and,  though  he  does  not 
usually  like  the  lesson,  it  seems  on  this  particular  day  a  very 
short  one.  Anything  that  engrosses  the  attention  must  pre- 
vent the  consciousness  of  the  duration  of  time.  Mere  lis- 
tening may  be  enough,  but  with  the  young  listening  becomes 
impossible  when  it  ceases  to  give  pleasure.  'I'he  young  want 
to  be  ^/f//;^  something." 

Use  of  fixed  forms 

"W.  Payne,  the  other  night,  was  loud  in  praise  of  the 
stately  old  musicians  who  had   a  fixed    form,   a  mould  into 


The  collectinc^  maiiici  443 

which  they  threw  their  ideas,  and  at  the  same  time  he  abused 
the  moderns  who  had  broken  these  moulds  and,  except  in 
moments  of  higher  inspiration,  were  formless.  This  use  of 
a  conventional  mould  is  a  subject  of  very  wide  extent.  The 
politeness  of  the  olden  time  was  a  mould  of  this  kind. 
The  gentleman  or  lady  had  their  stately  welcome  and  ])rLtty 
speeches  for  everyone.  The  new  arrivals  could  infer  nothing 
from  the  hosts'  manner;  this  was  the  same  for  all.  We  have 
broken  this  mould  and  are  often  curt,  and  even  rude,  if  we 
have  no  special  reason  to  be  the  contrary.  Again,  in  reading 
and  preaching,  if  we  adopt  a  studied  manner,  and  that  a 
good  one,  we  are  always  bearable.  But  if  we  trust  to  the 
inspiration  of  the  minute,  we  often  fall  into  a  manner  which 
is  detestable." 

The  collecting  mania 

"All  boys  are  naturally  collectors.  The  postage  stamp 
mania  is  ti  proof  of  it.  When  I  was  at  Dempster's  there 
was  a  passion  for  pebbles,  and  by  practice  (we  went  on  the 
beach  a  good  deal)  our  eyes  got  wonderfully  sharp  in  de- 
tecting them  among  common  stones.  This  tendency  to  'lay 
up  treasure  '  of  some  kind  or  other  may  be  made  most  use- 
ful through  life.  Not  to  take  the  highest  ground,  we  may 
consider  the  instinct  as  offering  an  escape  from  vacuity  and 
ennui.  Take  the  case  of  V.  He  seems  to  have  nothing  to 
look  forward  to.  He  has  now  a  first-rate  digestion  and  a 
faculty  for  dawdling  about  without  feeling  bored.  If  he  ever 
looks  ahead,  he  can  see  nothing  before  him  but  the  gradual 
failure  of  this  perfect  digestive  faculty,  and  meantime  he  seems 
rather  to  resemble  the  ancient  philosopher  who  did  not  kill 
himself  only  because  'it  would  be  just  the  same.'  But  if  V. 
became  a  collector  of  books  or  coins  or  autographs,  he  would 
have  an  interest  in  something  and  would  occasionally  have  a 
consciousness  of  gaining  something,  whereas  now  every  day 
must  leave  a  feeling  of  loss. 


444  ^-  H-  Quick 

"Collectors  in  another  sense  we  all  are.  As  we  grow 
older  we  lay  up  a  store  of  associations,  a  store  much  vaster 
than  we  have  any  conception  of,  but  almost  everything  we 
see,  each  place  we  visit,  reminds  us  of  something,  and  we 
become  ourselves  mere  collections  of  past  impressions,  and 
the  events  of  the  day  do  little  but  revive  this  or  that  impres- 
sion received  long  ago.     As  Goethe  said  in  his  old  age, 

'■  Was  ich  besitze  seh'  ich  wie  im  Weiten, 
Und  was  verschwand  wird  mir  zu  Wirklichkeiten.'' " 


Obstacles  to  reform  445 


VARIA 

Artists  lookifig  at  their  own  works 

"23.  3.  86.  Millais'  pictures  are  now  on  show  at  the 
Grosvenor  Gallery.  How  strange  it  must  seem  to  him  to 
walk  through  this  collection  of  the  main  works  of  his  life ! 
How  each  picture  must  carry  him  back  into  the  past  and 
remind  him  of  thoughts  and  feelings  and  efforts  which  have 
long  passed  away !  In  one  picture  he  must  see  his  triumph 
over  difficulties  which  for  a  time  seemed  insuperable,  in  an- 
other he  may  note  defects  due  to  this  or  that  obstruction 
or  to  mere  weariness  or  negligence.  The  outcome  of  it  all 
passes  before  him  as  a  panorama.  To  him  these  are  not 
pictures  as  they  are  to  us;  they  are  his  past  self.  Perhaps 
some  day  our  works  may  come  before  us  again.  We  may 
see  our  successes  and  our  failures  and  find  that  every  genuine 
effort  told  for  good  far  more  than  we  ventured  to  hope,  and 
that  every  negligence  and  every  yielding  to  our  lower  nature 
left  defects  that  never  can  be  remedied.  (17.  8.  87.)  I  find 
from  J.  E.  R.  that  Millais  expressed  to  a  friend  some  thoughts 
like  the  above." 


Why  reforms  are  rare  and  tardy 

"27.  7.  80.  I  have  just  sent  off  the  above  letter.^  It  is 
amusing  to  observe  the  difference  between  oneself  now  and 
twenty  years  ago.  In  those  days  diffidence  would  have  pre- 
vented my  even  thinking  of  writing,  but  I  should  have  had 

1  A  letter  to  Lord  Spencer,  President  of  Council,  suggesting  a  way  for 
encouraging  good  reading  in  elementary  schools  by  awarding  an  extra 
grant  for  excellence. 


446  R.  H.   Quick 

such  immense  belief  in  my  plan  that  I  should  have  expected 
it  to  be  adopted  directly  it  was  heard  of.  Now  I  expect  it 
to  do  no  good  at  all.  We  elderly  people  have  so  little  faith 
in  our  plans  succeeding  that  vi^e  don't  get  up  energy  enough 
to  propose  them  ;  or,  if  we  do  propose  them,  it  is  with  the 
feeling  that  we  ought  to  do  our  part,  though  probably  nothing 
will  come  of  it. 

"'Much  must  still  be  tried  which  shall  but  fail.'  I  see 
two  reasons  of  failure  which  I  should  not  have  expected  when 
I  was  younger.  First  I  have  a  suspicion  that  my  plan  is 
not  nearly  such  a  good  one  as  it  seems  to  me.  We  all  tre- 
mendously overrate  the  value  of  whatever  has  suggested  itself 
first  to  us.  So  more  impartial  eyes  may  see  defects  which  I 
cannot  see,  and  perhaps  could  not  even  be  brought  to  see. 
Next,  even  if  my  plan  were  as  good  as  I  think  it,  there  is  a 
great  want  of  receptivity  in  all  our  minds  (or  nearly  all)  to 
take  in  any  suggestions  of  other  people's,  which  proves  an 
insuperable  obstacle  to  most  improvements.  If  such  a  plan 
came  into  the  head  of  Lord  Spencer  himself,  it  probably 
would  be  received  so  coldly  by  the  permanent  ofificials  that 
he  would  give  it  up.  If  it  occurred  to  Sir  F.  Sandford  he 
would  no  doubt  carry  it  through,  but  then  these  people  who 
administer  and  are  supposed  to  understand  things  are  just 
the  people  who  have  got  to  look  on  the  present  system 
as  the  only  thing  possible,  and  so  are  the  last  people  in 
the  world  to  whom  new  ideas  are  likely  to  occur.  We  old 
people  then  see  how  hard  it  is  to  get  anything  changed. 
We  know  too  that  changes,  when  effected,  are  often  dis- 
appointing. So  we  find  lots  of  excuses  to  back  up  our 
laziness." 

Reflections  on   Tidying 

"24.  4.  82.  Tidying  always  brings  sad  thoughts.  One 
stumbles  on  so  many  things  that  remind  one  of  interests  or 
efforts   that  seem   to  have   passed   away,    to    have    died   and 


Tidying  447 

been  forgotten.  All  the  early  part  of  life  is  spent  in  looking 
forward,  but  then  we  change  our  place  and  ride  with  our 
backs  to  the  horses.  We  have  nothing  better  to  expect  as 
far  as  the  world  goes.  We  should  like  to  keep  as  we  are, 
but  we  know  this  is  impossible,  and  every  change  will  be  a 
loss.  When  the  truth  forces  itself  upon  us  we  have  need  to 
listen  to  our  Saviour's  'Believe  in  God,  believe  also  in  Me.' 
Another  thing  tidying  brings  home  to  weak  people  like  me 
is  the  too-muchness  of  everything.  There  are  hosts  of  subjects 
I  should  like  to  go  into,  hosts  of  books  I  should  like  to 
read.  As  a  young  man  one  expected  to  find  time  for  all 
or  most  of  these  different  subjects  and  perhaps  accumulated 
books  to  read  'some  day,'  but  now  one  feels  pretty  certain 
one  will  go  on  grinding  in  some  narrow  groove  till  the  time 
comes  when  energy  ceases,  so  that  one  has  to  give  up  many 
of  the  things  that  one  seemed  to  have  in  posse  before  one 
loses  what  is  ours  in  esse." 

Sehnsucht 

"An  untranslatable  word,  but  Longfellow  has  paraphrased 
it  well,  though  he  takes  a  whole  stanza  to  do  it :  — 

'  A  feeling  of  sadness  and  longing 
That  is  not  akin  to  j^ain, 
And  resembles  sorrow  only 
As  the  mist  resembles  rain.'  " 

From   Goethe  {}) 

"  As  all  Nature's  thousand  changes 

But  one  changeless  God  proclaim, 
So  in  Art's  wide  kingdom  ranges 

One  sole  meaning,  still  the  same : 
This  is  Truth,  eternal  Reason, 

Which  from  Beauty  takes  its  dress, 
And  serene  through  time  and  season, 

Stands  for  aye  in  loveliness." 


448  R.  //.   Quick 


From  Martial 

"Though  the  plan,  Sir,  was  mine  and  youM  no  right  to 
bone  it, 
Now  I  see  the  result,  I'm  not  likely  to  own  it." 

Various  readings  in  MS. 

"In  reading  foreign  editions  of  English  books  one  gets  to 
see  the  sort  of  blunders  the  copyists  of  MSS.  would  make  in 
their  own  time:  — 

'  I  dare  do  all  that  may  become  a  man 
Who  dares  to  move  is  none.' 

*  Next  Camus  reverend  sire  came /<?0//;/j^  slow.' 

I  have  observed  the  same  sort  of  thing  with  schoolboys.  That 
the  connected  words  should  have  any  meaning  for  them  is  by 
no  means  essential,  but  they  insist  that  every  word  shall  have 
a  meaning  for  them  by  itself." 

A  fly's  notioji  of  Paradise 

"A  place  where  it  would  be  blazing  hot  and  the  cows 
would  have  no  tails." 

"6.  lo.  87.  Professor  Voigt  writes  to  ask  me  if  'Giving 
the  pick  of  the  peasants  a  higher  education  '  can  mean  'Send- 
ing peasants  who  work  with  the  pick  to  the  university.'  " 

"Some  people  think  of  boys  as  men  seen  through  the 
wrong  end  of  the  telescope." 

"  We  praise  people,  not  for  doing  what  they  are  inclined 
to  do,  but  what  they  do  contrary  to  their  inclination  from  a 
sense  of  duty.  If  this  rule  is  right,  we  often  give  unde- 
served praise  to  energetic  people.  We  say,  'Look  at  that 
lazy  scoundrel  Donothing  loafing  about  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets.  W^hy  don't  he  work  like  his  cousin  Mugger,  who 
slaves  away  in  his  shop  from  8  a.m.  to  8  p.m.  ?  '     Why,  Mugger 


Varia  Literaria  449 

would  be  as  wretched  dawdling  about  in  the  sun  as  Donothing 
would  be  slaving  behind  the  counter." 

"  12.  8,  85.  People  who  carry  on  several  pursuits  at  the 
same  part  of  their  lives  seem  to  me  like  jugglers  who  keep 
up  five  or  six  balls.  I  look  on  with  amazement,  and  when 
I  feebly  try  to  imitate  them  with  two  balls,  one  of  them 
speedily  comes  to  the  ground." 

"What  we  see  depends  not  so  much  on  what  is  before  our 
eyes  as  on  what  is  behind  them." 

"Wisdom  cried  of  old,  'I  am  the  mother  of  fair  love,  and 
fear,  and  knowledge,  and  holy  hope.'  Ecclus.  xxiv.  18.  But 
in  this  age  of  science  knowledge  seems  the  sole  survivor. 
Like  another  Cain,  he  has  risen  up  against  his  brethren,  fear 
and  holy  hope,  and  slain  them,  and  fair  love  has  died  of  grief." 

"  We  have  no  more  right  to  keep  boys  without  a  play- 
ground than  ducks  without  a  pond.  This  is  true  of  mental 
playground  as  well  as  bodily." 

"  Good  learners  as  a  rule  make  poor  teachers.  The  ac- 
tivity and  nimbleness  of  mind  which  make  them  take  things 
in  quickly,  also  make  them  impatient  of  the  slower  processes 
of  ordinary  learners." 

"We  all  want  to  have  truth  on  our  side,  but  few  indeed 
want  to  be  on  the  side  of  truth.  If  truth  is  likely  to  appear 
on  the  opposite  side,  we  pretend  to  look  for  her;  but,  like 
Nelson,  we  put  the  telescope  to  the  blind  eye." 

VARIA    LITERARIA 

C.  S.    Calverley 

"  Kingsley  called  here  yesterday  and  seemed  almost  ner- 
vous. Maurice  used  to  be  the  same,  yet  what  difference 
could  an  ordinary  man's  opinion  make  to  them?  Calverley, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  reckless  of  opinion.  A  small  anecdote 
illustrates  this.  He  was  examining,  at  Cheltenham,  I  think. 
At  the  proper  time  he  did  not  appear.     There  was  a  dead 

2G 


450  R.  H.  Quick 

pause  for  a  long  time;  nobody  knew  what  had  happened. 
At  length  Calverley  appeared.  He  observed  to  the  head- 
master that  he  should  have  been  earlier,  but  that  after  break- 
fast he  had  inadvertently  lighted  a  cigar." 

READING 

II  y  a  fagots  et  fagots 

"I  have  just  finished  Forster's  Life  of  Dickens.  Reading 
some  books  is  like  going  down  hill  —  you  can  hardly  stop. 
Reading  others  is  like  going  up  hill,  and  the  ascent  some- 
times becomes  so  very  steep  that  further  progress  becomes 
impossible.  I  don't  often  read  the  down-hill  books,  which 
consist  mostly  of  good  fiction.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  better 
for  me  if  I  did,  for  in  consequence  of  always  going  up  hill 
I  get  accustomed  to  very  slow  action.  A  run  down  hill 
would  raise  my  spirits,  and  I  dare  say  prove  no  loss  of  time 
in  the  end.  Forster's  book  is  very  good  down-hill  reading 
with  much  'skip  '  in  it. 

"Some  people  speak  of  'reading'  as  if  books  were  all  of 
one  kind.  But  books  are  really  our  guide  into  the  world  of 
imagination  and  the  world  of  thought.  Few  indeed  can  pass 
into  either  of  these  worlds  alone;  and,  though  called  by  the 
same  name,  the  mental  process  in  following  one  author  is 
utterly  different  from  that  required  in  following  another.  We 
read  the  light  novel,  which  would  pall  if  we  attempted  to 
look  at  it  the  second  time;  and  we  read  the  sonnet  weighty 
with  meaning  in  every  word,  so  weighty  that  we  understand 
nothing  perhaps  at  the  first  reading,  and  know  it  by  heart 
before  we  have  mastered  it.  Hobbes  of  old,  and  Robertson 
a  few  years  ago,  spoke  of  the  evils  of  much  reading.  They 
surely  should  have  said  what  reading  they  meant.  Of  course 
light  reading  is  not  above  other  amusements,  but  reading 
that  must  be  study  does  not  belong  to  the  same  category. 
Matthew  Arnold  lately  took  me  to  task  for  the  way  I  spent 
my  time  at  Harrow,   and  found  great  fault  with  me  for  not 


Literary  Style  451 

making  a  point  of  reading.  It  is  odd  tliat  the  thing  which 
I  ought  to  do,  and  which  it  is  the  greatest  pleasure  of  my 
life  to  do,  I  always  postpone  to  other  things  in  such  a  way 
that  in  effect  it  falls  through  altogether." 

Litera7-y  Style.     Hallam 

"  I  have  not  read  much  of  Hallam,  and  my  judgment  may 
be  too  hasty,  but  I  seldom  read  a  page  without  disgust.  He 
always  seems  to  me  giving  himself  elaborate  airs  of  impar- 
tiality, and  offering  as  a  judgment  of  the  supreme  court  of  ap- 
peal small  observations  quite  on  the  surface  of  things  and 
quasi-impartial  from  their  being  safe  and  see-saw. 

"Locke  'turned  his  thoughts  to  education  with  all  the 
advantages  which  a  strong  understanding  and  entire  disin- 
terestedness could  give  him;  but,  as  we  should  imagine,  with 
some  necessary  deficiencies  of  experience,  though  we  hardly 
perceive  much  of  them  in  his  writings.'  How  safe  and  silly 
all  this  is!  When  a  man  writes  for  publication  he  easily 
falls  into  an  easy,  glib  way  of  saying  things,  and  his  style 
becomes  like  his  company  manners.  It  is  intended  to  be 
proper  and  decorous,  but  this  manner  conceals  our  real  selves 
and  our  sham  selves  are  insipid  and  uninteresting. 

"I  have  at  times  fancied  that  my  'style'  had  suffered 
from  so  much  note-book  scribbling.  In  this,  of  course,  I 
have  never  thought  of  expression,  but  have  just  jotted  down 
what  I  had  to  say  in  the  first  words  that  came.  This  has 
made  me  write  in  short  sentences,  and  I  can  now  write  no 
other.  But,  after  all,  it  is  better  to  be  jerky  and  undignified 
than  to  write  in  the  literary  way.  When  a  man  can  entirely 
fiing  away  literary  form  and  just  say  in  the  most  direct  manner 
what  he  thinks,  he  is  generally  interesting." 

Effect  of  keeping  a  Diary  on  Style 
"  16.  9.   85.     It  is  a  matter  of  considerable  interest  to  me 
how  far  I  have  done  myself  good,   how  far   the   reverse,   by 
writing  in  note-books.     On  the  one  hand  I  suppose  I  have 


452  R.  H.  Quick 

gained  in  the  power  of  saying  what  I  want  to  say  without 
affectation  or  circumlocution.  But  is  distinctness  the  only,  or 
even  the  main,  essential  of  diction?  Our  form  of  expression 
naturally  differs  according  to  the  person  addressed." 

Liferary  Style,  Adagio,  Largo,  &'c. 

"I  don't  know  whether  anybody  has  made  the  observa- 
tion, but  writing  might  be  marked  like  music,  adagio,  largo, 
&c.,  up  to  prestissimo.  However,  it  is  not  necessary  to  mark 
it,  a  few  sentences  will  decide.  The  metaphor  is  not  quite 
satisfactory,  as  the  reader  is  carried  on  or  delayed  without 
being  conscious  of  it.  Macaulay  is  the  greatest  writer  I  know 
of  the  rapid  style.  Writing,  to  carry  the  reader  along,  must 
be  pleasant  to  him,  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  pleasant 
reading  which  is  not  of  the  rapid  kind.  Carlyle,  in  his  earlier 
essays  (his  later  work  is  abnormal),  gives  admirable  speci- 
mens of  this  more  thoughtful  writing.  Here  the  thought  is 
not  beaten  out,  so  that  he  who  runs  and  reads  may  under- 
stand, but  every  sentence  gives  up  its  meaning,  somewhat 
slowly,  but  not  too  slowly,  and  every  word  seems  chosen  with 
care,  and  therefore  to  deserve  care  in  reading.  In  poetry 
Scott  is  perhaps  the  best  of  the  presto  writers.  Byron,  too, 
is  good.  Tennyson's  Idylls  are  medium,  but  much  of  his 
other  poetry,  especially  In  Memoriam,  belongs  to  a  class  of 
reading  which  cannot  be  read  straight  off  with  any  under- 
standing at  all.  A  great  deal  of  poetry  and  some  prose 
cannot  be  made  out  without  study,  and  therefore  can  never 
be  popular.  People  who  only  read  things  once  would  not 
get  far  into  Shakespeare's  Sonnets.  Of  poor  writing  one  may 
say  that  it  does  not  flash  its  meaning  on  the  reader,  and  bores 
him  if  he  gives  the  time  necessary  to  take  it  in.  After  all,  how 
little  writing  there  is  that  one  reads  with  pleasure! 

"  I  have  spoken  above  about  rapid  style.  How  a  man  is 
tested  by  being  read  in  excerpts.  Most  writing  tastes  as  vapid 
as  porter  in  a  tea-spoon,  but  careful  writing  like  Carlyle's 
stands  the  test  like  fine  wine." 


Swift  453 

On  a  bit  of  chalk 

"It  has  often  struck  me  what  power  is  given  to  any  ordi- 
nary mortal  by  the  possession  of  a  bit  of  chalk.  He  may 
scribble  up  'No  Popery'  and  send  a  thrill  of  Protestantism 
through  half  the  country.  He  may  scrawl  'Dizzy  forever' 
and  seem  to  give  proof  that  the  lower  orders  are  conservative. 
Or  he  may  outrage  decency  and  make  the  intelligent  foreigner 
believe  that  English  decorum  is  a  mere  outer  varnish.  By 
virtue  of  the  bit  of  chalk  the  man  or  the  boy  becomes  a  repre- 
sentative person  and  speaks  for  the  whole  neighbourhood. 

"And  in  these  days  of  anonymous  journalism  the  pen  often 
serves  the  most  insignificant  persons  as  a  bit  of  chalk.  The 
man  who  writes  in  the  newspapers  is  often  no  wiser  than  other 
people,  but  everything  he  says  is  read  far  and  wide  and  goes 
for  much  more  than  it  is  worth." 

Swift 
"Swift's  letter  to  Bolingbroke,  in  which  is  the  often  quoted 
passage  about  his  ambition  'to  be  used  like  a  lord  '  is  dated 
April  5,  1729.  I  can't  help  thinking  we  are  hard  upon  him 
if  we  take  him  at  his  word.  When  a  man  lets  disappointment 
or  ill-temper  vent  itself  in  cynicism,  he  soon  gets  to  speak  in 
character,  so  to  say.  His  real  self  is  lost  in  the  part  he  has 
taken  up.  A  case  in  point  is  Bartle  Massey  in  Adam  Bede, 
a  man  with  a  kind  heart  who  has  been  crossed  in  love,  and 
so  sets  up  for  a  woman-hater.  Nobody  would  suppose  that 
everything  such  a  man  says  is  to  be  taken  as  the  sober  ex- 
pression of  conviction.  He  has  assumed  a  part,  and  much 
that  he  says  proceeds  simply  from  his  sense  of  dramatic  pro- 
priety. Swift  in  like  manner  assumed  the  cynic,  and  if  we 
would  judge  him  fairly  we  must  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  pass 
sentence  simply  because  he  has  pleaded  guilty." 

New   York  School  Journal 
"There  is  a  terrible  want  of  dignity  and  self-restraint  —  of 
gentlemanliness,  in  fact  —  about  these  Americans.     The  editor 


454  ^-  ^-  Q^^'ick 

puffs  his  paper  and  the  advertisers  puff  their  wares  like  so 
many  cheap-jacks." 

French  mots 

"What  a  calamity  to  a  nation  to  have  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  coining  such  phrases  as 'L'empire  c'est  la  paix. '  Michelet 
abounds  in  these  —  e.g.  'La  terre  c'est  la  liberty.'  (He  says 
elsewhere,  'La  liberte  c'est  I'homme, '  whence  we  may  infer 
that  'La  terre  c'est  I'homme.')  These  phrases  save  both 
reader  and  writer  the  trouble  of  thinking,  but  they  are 
merely  flash  notes  on  the  bank  of  truth,  and  when  they  are 
presented  they  will  not  be  cashed." 

Originaliiy  in  a  writer 

"The  question  I  have  been  revolving  lately,  how  far  an 
author  should  use  what  has  been  said  before,  and  how  far 
he  may  avoid  references  to  authorities,  is  one  which  extends 
in  many  directions.  x'\s  M.  Arnold  says,  we  need  culture, 
and  culture  is  knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
written.  Whatever  subject  one  goes  into  then,  one  should 
know  what  has  already  been  done  in  it.  I  am  at  work  on 
the  Epigram.  Seeley  tells  me  to  look  up  Lessing,  and  there 
I  find  a  thorough  discussion  of  the  Epigram.  I  am  writing 
an  essay  on  Lyric  Poetry.  If  I  take  up  a  standard  book, 
Gervinus  say,  I  expect  I  shall  find  everything  I  could  think 
(and  of  course  a  vast  deal  more)  already  said.  And,  as  I 
am  no  Lessing  or  Gervinus,  I  should  of  course  consult  best 
for  my  readers  by  simply  looking  up  the  subject  in  standard 
authorities  and  summing  up  with  or  without  acknowledgment 
what  Lessing  and  Gervinus  have  said.  This  will  be  the  most 
useful  work  for  the  ordinary  man  to  do.  The  great  thinkers 
may  work  independently,  or  study  Lessing  and  Gervinus,  and 
advance  on  what  they  have  left  us.  All  this  seems  straight- 
forward enough;  and,  if  one  is  well  posted  in  a  subject,  one 
laughs  to  see  a  writer's  first  crude  notions  trumpeted  as  dis- 


Literary  Originality  455 

coveries.  And  yet  there  are  few  minds  in  which  the  truly 
vigorous  thoughts  are  not  the  autochthonic.  Those  which 
are  naturalised  exist  on  sufferance,  and  have  little  'go'  in 
them.  If  I  come  fresh  to  the  consideration  of  the  Epigram 
or  the  Lyric,  I  strike  a  few  thoughts  which  may  be  in  part 
erroneous,  and  are  safe  to  have  been  anticipated  if  true. 
But  these  thoughts  have  vitality  in  them,  and  when  I  ex- 
press them  there  will  be  some  freshness  and  vigour  in  the 
expression.  But  if,  instead  of  thinking  for  myself,  I  read  up 
the  subject,  I  may  say  what  is  much  better  worth  saying, 
but  I  may  show  by  my  manner  that  I  am  not  a  voice,  but 
merely  an  echo." 

Coleridge's  Plagiarism 

"  Seeley,  talking  of  Coleridge,  said  that  he  probably  never 
plagiarised  wittingly.  Thompson,  the  Master  of  Trinity,  told 
Seeley  that  on  one  occasion  a  friend  of  his  lent  Coleridge  a 
Jeremy  Taylor  and  received  it  back  with  the  margins  filled 
as  usual.  Some  time  afterwards  Coleridge  quoted  a  passage 
as  Jeremy  Taylor's  which  proved  not  to  be  Jeremy  Taylor's, 
but  Coleridge's  own  written  in  the  margin." 

Disraeli's  Plagiarisms 

"15.   7.  87.     C.  Mdick^y's  An tol^iography. 

"It  was  when  Mackay  was  editor  of  the  Morning  Chronicle 
that  Dizzy's  plagiarisms  were  pointed  out  in  the  Chronicle,  viz. 
that  in  his  obituary  oration  on  the  Duke  of  Wellington  (1852), 
and  in  his  character  of  Lord  Cadurcis  taken  straight  from 
Macaulay's  Essay  on  Byron,  then  buried  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review.  In  his  oration  Dizzy,  as  I  remember,  was  affected 
to  Thiers  (it's  a  pity  this  pun  comes  thirty-five  years  too 
late).  Thiers  had  spoken  it  eighteen  years  before  at  the  grave 
of  Marshal  Mortier.  A  friend  of  Dizzy's  wrote  to  say  both 
passages  had  been  copied  into  a  common-place  book  without 
reference,  and  Dizzy  had  mistaken  them  for  his  own." 


456  R.  H.  Quick 

Macaulaf  s  Johnson 

"I  have  been  reading  Leslie  Stephen' syi?//^^^?;/,  and  I  was 
inclined  to  think  it  an  improvement  on  Macaulay,  but  last 
night  I  took  up  Macaulay' s  Essay  and  could  not  put  it  down. 
For  Stephen  I  have  a  great  liking,  and  I  think  him  full  of 
good  sense.  Macaulay,  you  may  say,  is  a  mere  literary  artist, 
and  sacrifices  sense  and  everything  else  to  effect;  but  after 
all,  how  absurd  is  the  attempt  to  depreciate  Macaulay! 
Leslie  Stephen  seems  purposely  to  have  ignored  Macaulay's 
Essay,  and  has  just  a  passing  allusion  to  Macaulay's  style, 
which  he  speaks  of  as  his  snip-snap.  It  won't  do  !  Macaulay 
is  one  of  the  great  artists  whom  we  must  acknowledge  as  such 
if  we  do  not  want  to  make  ourselves  ridiculous.  Stephen  has 
selected  his  material  very  well  and  given  a  capital  account  of 
Johnson,  but  it  is  after  all  a  compilation.  Macaulay  does  not 
seem  to  collect  material  at  all.  Johnson  and  all  his  associates 
seem  familiar  to  IMacaulay.^  The  material  has  been  fused  by 
his  imagination,  and  is  no  longer  a  collection  of  anecdotes; 
Macaulay  makes  you  know  Johnson  as  Thackeray  makes  you 
know  Major  Pendennis.  You  feel  that  he  might  tell  you 
ever  so  much  more  if  he  chose,  but  he  tells  you  just  what 
you  want  to  know,  and  that's  all.  As  for  'snip-snap,'  the 
style  is  admirable;  there  is  a  perfect  flow  about  it.  Stephen 
might  point  out  a  lot  of  full-stops,  but  that  doesn't  matter 
a  pin.  What  you  must  judge  by  is  not  the  printing,  which 
nobody  need  think  of  but  the  printer,  but  the  effect  on  the 
mind  of  the  reader,  and  to  my  mind  at  least  there  is  nothing 
jerky  in  Macaulay's  sketch  of  Johnson. 

^  So  Scott  writes  of  himself  and  his  imitators: — "One  advantage,  I 
think,  I  still  have  over  all  of  them.  They  may  do  their  fooling  with  better 
grace;  but  I,  like  Sir  Andrew  Aguecheek,  do  it  more  natural.  They  have 
to  read  old  books  and  consult  antiquarian  collections  to  get  their  know- 
ledge; I  write  because  I  have  long  since  read  such  works,  and  possess, 
thanks  to  a  strong  memory,  the  information  which  they  have  to  seek  for." 
— Journal,  I.  275. 


J.  R.  See  ley  on  Style  457 

"I  have  since  read  his  Addison,  but  I  know  the  essay  too 
well,  and  Macaulay  will  not  bear  reading  again  and  again,  at 
least  by  adults.  The  clever  passage  in  which  he  says  that 
Pope  learnt  the  trick  of  smooth  versification  and  taught  it  to 
everybody,  so  that  since  the  appearance  of  the  Pastorals  we 
are  as  little  disposed  to  admire  a  man  for  making  smooth 
verses  as  for  writing  his  own  name,  is  taken  straight  away  from 
Warton  without  acknowledgment. 

"'Upon  the  whole  the  principal  merit  of  the  Pastorals  of 
Pope  consists  in  their  correct  and  musical  versification,  musical 
to  a  degree  of  which  rhyme  could  hardly  be  thought  capable, 
and  in  giving  the  first  specimen  of  that  harmony  in  English 
verse  which  has  now  become  indispensably  necessary,  and 
which  has  so  forcibly  and  universally  influenced  the  public 
ear  as  to  have  rendered  every  moderate  rhyme  melodious,' 
Warton' s  Essay  on  Genius  of  Pope,  vol.  i.  p.  10." 

Letter  from  Seeley  on  Style 

"3  June,  '79.  The  other  day,  in  writing  to  J.  R.  Seeley, 
I  spoke  of  some  lecture  of  his  in  which  he  implied  that 
the  'interesting'  school  of  historians  began  with  Scott  and 
Macaulay.  I  said  the  ancients  must  have  endeavoured  to 
be  interesting,  for  they  paid  great  attention  to  style;  and 
Sallust,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Catilines,  says  it  is  as  hard 
to  write  history  as  to  make  it,  for  the  style  is  equal  to  the 
things  done. 

"To  this  Seeley  answers:  —  'I  am  much  struck  with  your 
remark  about  historical  style.  You  say  the  ancients  must 
have  tried  to  make  their  histories  readable  because  they 
thought  so  much  about  style.  No  doubt  Herodotus  did 
before  history  proper  was  invented;  no  doubt  some  Latin 
historians  did,  even  Tacitus  at  times,  because  scarcely  any 
Roman  ever  knew  what  he  would  be  at  in  literature.  But 
I  do  not  think  it  would  be  fair  to  say   of  Tacitus  that   this 


458  R.  H.  Quick 

{i.e.  to  make  his  book  readable)  was  a  main  object  with 
him,  and  it  would  be  utterly  unfair  to  say  of  Thucydides, 
who  of  all  the  ancients  is  the  one  real  model  in  history. 
But  I  am  struck  with  the  assumption  you  make  that  the 
object  of  style  is  to  make  a  book  readable,  because  I  have 
met  the  same  assumption  in  almost  all  the  reviews  of  Stein. 
According  to  me  style  is  a  wholly  different  thing,  and  in 
history  attention  to  style  does  not  make  a  book  more  read- 
able, but  to  a  certain  extent  less  so.  The  fault  of  Macaulay 
is  that  he  does  not  think  of  style  enough.  Style  seems  to 
me  a  certain  correspondence  between  the  words  and  the 
subject-matter.  When  a  book  consists  of  rigorous  investiga- 
tion, and  has  for  its  main  object  to  dissipate  illusions  and 
give  a  trustworthy  view  of  what  happened,  there  can  be  no 
greater  violation  of  the  law  of  style  than  that  it  should  be 
written  in  the  diction  of  romance.  Historical  style  should 
be  real  prose,  and,  what  is  more,  impersonal  prose.  To  write 
it  well  is  very  difficult,  and  the  principal  difficulty  of  it  is  to 
get  rid  of  colour  and  literary  varnish  of  all  kinds.  Unaffected 
simplicity,  chastity,  transparent  clearness  joined  with  brevity, 
these  are  the  proper  marks  of  the  historical  style.  I  have 
been  very  much  struck  in  reading  the  criticisms  on  'Stein  '  to 
observe  that  a  style  of  this  sort  seems  to  English  critics  the 
very  negation  of  a  style.  I  wonder  what  they  would  say  to 
Caesar  if  he  appeared  now  for  the  first  time !  I  was  par- 
ticularly proud  of  the  style  of  'Stein '  and  thought  I  had  made 
quite  a  discovery,  and  one  or  two  readers  have  seen  what  I 

aimed  at;  e.g.  Fred  M writes  that  it  is  such  a  delight  to 

read  a  style  so  strong,  simple  and  masterly.  I  like  these 
epithets;  they  are  just  those  I  hoped  to  deserve.  I  was  not 
greatly  surprised  to  find  several  reviewers  not  seeing  anything 
of  this;  but  it  does  take  me  aback  to  find  not  a  single  re- 
viewer betraying  that  he  ever  heard  of  simplicity  as  a  high 
literary  merit,  or  that  he  ever  knew  that  in  some  sorts  of 
composition  the  negative  virtues  were  much  more  important 
than  the  positive  ones." 


Smollett  459 


Smollett 

"29  July,  1879.  The  other  day,  at  Stachelberg,  I  looked 
through  Peregrine  Pickle.  There  are  all  sorts  of  blemishes, 
artistic  and  other,  in  the  book,  and  it  is  far  inferior  to 
Humphry  Clinker.  But  Smollett's  extreme  carelessness  about 
plot  has  this  advantage,  that  he  runs  off  to  give  you  his  views 
on  this  and  that.  I  fancy  Hogarth  had  much  influence  on 
Smollett,  and  that  Smollett  tried  to  be  a  literary  Hogarth. 
Like  Hogarth,  he  succeeds  in  making  human  life  rexolting. 
I  have  been  told  of  an  odd  boy  who,  on  a  journey,  pointed 
out  to  his  aunt  a  number  of  disgusting  sights.  At  length 
she  said,  'Alfred,  you  see  nothing  but  what  is  disgusting.' 
'O  yes,'  said  Alfred,  'I  see  everything,  but  I  only  point  out 
what  is  disgusting.'  This  youth  ought  to  have  turned  out 
a  Hogarth  or  a  Smollett.  Peregrine  himself  is  a  mere  lay 
figure.  He  goes  to  school  at  Winchester,  but  one  can't  gather 
much  from  the  Winchester  or  Oxford  part  except  that  it  was  the 
custom  then  to  send  boys  both  to  the  public  schools  and  to 
the  Universities  with  a 'governor. '  This  plan  was  not  quite 
abandoned  when  I  was  a  boy.  Lord  Hopetoun  was  at  Harrow 
with  a  tutor,  and  had  a  house  taken  for  him,  1  think." 

Unsc7upulousness  of  neiuspapcrs 

"6.  II.  80.  In  to-day's  Spectator  is  a  singular  instance  of 
our  newspaper  people.  The  editor  of  the  K^S/^^tYcz/^r  quarrelled 
with  Seeley  about  the  election  of  a  professor  at  University 
College,  London,  when  the  former  backed  James  Martineau 
and  the  latter  Croora  Robertson.  What  is  the  consequence? 
In  this  month's  Macmillan,  as  I  have  said  above,  is  a  paper 
of  Seeley's  which  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  important  that 
has  appeared  in  a  magazine  for  a  long  time.  It  points  out 
the  dangers  we  are  exposed  to  from  our  ignorance  of  political 
science,   and  from  studying  history  in  the  writings  of  mere 


460  R.  H.   Quick 

literary  men  who  care  nothing  for  political  science,  but  think 
only  of  effective  portraiture.  The  subject  is  a  most  important 
one ;  Seeley  is  thoroughly  master  of  it,  and  is  one  of  our 
very  ablest  writers.  In  this  article,  too,  he  has  put  out 
his  strength.  Yet  the  Spectator,  in  noticing  'Articles  in  the 
magazines,'  never  mentions  the  paper  at  all ;  and,  for  fear  it 
should  be  supposed  to  have  overlooked  it,  writes,  'We  have 
been  unable    to    discover   any    other    paper   of  mark,  though 

Mrs  gives  in  Macmillan  an  account  of  —  [a  bogey  in 

Ceylon,  a  very  common-place  ghost  story],  '  so  that,  without 
mentioning  Seeley,  it  manages  to  say  that  Seeley's  paper  is 
not  worth  mentioning.  And  the  Spectator  prides  itself  on  its 
fairness  !  " 

Tennyson'' s  Rizpah 

"12.  12.  80.  Haslemere.  Mr  William  Barnes  (aged  65) 
has  just  told  me  the  following.  When  he  was  seven  he  saw 
the  corpses  of  the  two  Tilleys,  who  were  hanged  at  Horsham 
and  gibbeted  on  the  road  between  this  and  Midhurst  for 
robbing  the  mail  at  North  Heath.  There  was  a  story  that 
the  mother  collected  the  bones.  They  were  a  family  living 
near  Lurgashall.  This  story  no  doubt  Tennyson  has  heard. 
Hence  Rizpah  just  published." 

Translation 

"  '  A  literal  translation  is  better  than  a  loose  one,  just  as 
a  cast  from  a  fine  statue  is  better  than  an  imitation  of  it. 
For  copies,  whether  of  words  or  things,  must  be  valuable  in 
proportion  to  their  exactness.'     U. 

"  Here  we  have  a  saying  more  witty  than  wise.  A  cast 
gives  the  exact  shape,  though  in  an  inferior  material,  but  a 
literal  translation  does  not  always  convey  the  exact  thought. 
Besides,  in  a  fine  literary  work  there  is  beauty  of  thought 
and  beauty  of  expression.  In  the  statue  there  is  one  beauty 
only.     If  the    expression    in    the    translation   is   uncouth,  the 


Translation  46 1 

thought  must  be  precious  indeed,  or  the  translation  will  be 
unreadable.  'The  copy  should  be  like  the  original.'  Yes, 
but  it  is  not  like  the  original  if  the  language  is  idiomatic  in 
the  one  and  barbarous  in  the  other.  Similes  like  that  of  the 
cast  and  the  copy  sound  well,  but  are  of  no  intrinsic  value. 
It  is  just  as  much  to  the  point  to  say  that  a  man  skilled  in 
portraits  can  give  us  a  truer  conception  of  a  profile  than  a 
man  who  goes  to  work  with  a  silhouette  instrument. 

"There  are  really  two  kinds  of  translation.  In  the  one 
the  translator  professes  to  be  in  the  confidence,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  original  author,  to  know  exactly  what  he  means,  and 
therefore  be  at  liberty  to  vary  the  expression,  so  long  as  the 
meaning  is  completely  and  accurately  given.  But  in  other 
translations,  e.g.  that  of  the  Bible,  the  translators  confess 
that  they  transmit  signs  which  they  at  best  only  understand 
in  part.  In  Ireland  I  was  once  shown  an  old  inscription  in 
stone  on  an  estate  of  one  of  the  Guinesses.  As  the  inscrip- 
tion was  getting  worn  out,  the  proprietor  had  employed  some 
common  mason  to  cut  it  deeper.  The  mason,  not  knowing 
even  the  Erse  characters,  had  cut  with  the  best  intention  no 
doubt,  but  had  in  fact  destroyed  the  inscription.  Our  trans- 
lators try  to  avoid  a  similar  mistake.  They  wish  to  preserve 
the  signs  intact,  and  leave  the  interpretation  of  them." 

A and  Llezvelxn  Davies 


"  It  is  interesting  to  observe  how  men  differ  in  the  range 
of  their  interests,  i.e.  in  the  range  of  their  receptivity,  for  we 
acquire  only  so  far  as  we  are  interested. 

"  One  of  the  ablest  men  and  best  workers  I  know  gets  to 
have  a  splendid  accuracy  of  knowledge  in  the  area  on  which 
he  has  worked,  but  shows  astonishing  ignorance  when  you  go 
a  step  beyond. 

"  A  competent  viva  voce  friendly  critic  said  to  me  that  A.'s 
mind  was  furnished  almost  entirely  by  Bacon  and  Shakespeare ; 


462  R.  H.  Quick 

he  might,  of  course,  have  added  the  Bible.  The  critic  has 
picked  up  far  more  in  the  world  of  books,  but  he  despises 
everything  not  first-rate  ;  so,  astonishing  as  his  knowledge  of 
great  authors  is,  he  is  less  well  acquainted  with  the  small 
fry  than  many  ordinary  people.  About  common  matters  not 
connected  with  literature  he  is  as  ignorant  as  a  child.  Here 
he  presents  a  marked  contrast  to  our  common  friend  Llewelyn 
Davies,  whose  power  of  picking  up  is  very  great  —  he  seems  to 
know  most  things  and  everybody.  But  then  these  first-rate 
men  do  not  know  half  as  much  about  the  minutiae  of  our 
material  surroundings  as  another  friend  of  mine  who  can 
hardly  read." 

Afe?noir  of  Daniel  Macmillan,  by   Thomas  Hughes 

"  1 8.  2.  83.  Daniel  Macmillan  was  in  himself  well  worthy 
of  a  memoir,  and  Hughes  has  done  his  work  excellently, 
allowing  D.  M.  to  tell  his  own  story  in  his  letters  and  diary. 

"Private  letters  and  diaries  have  many  advantages  (with 
some  drawbacks)  over  what  is  written  for  publication.  The 
Devonshire  people  will  not  drink  '  manufactured '  cider,  i.e. 
cider  prepared  for  the  London  market.  I,  too,  like  the  juice 
of  the  apple  pure  and  simple,  though  it  is  apt  to  be  *  hard.' 
Directly  we  begin  to  write  for  the  public  we  cannot  help 
posing,  just  as  we  do  when  we  see  the  photographer  bury 
his  head  in  the  black  cloth.  It  seems  almost  impossible  to 
say  just  what  we  think  and  have  done  with  it.  On  the  other 
hand  our  jottings  for  ourselves  or  in  letters  are  mostly  hurried, 
and  one  sees  the  want  of  continuous  effort.  The  English  is 
often  jerky  and  scrappy.  Macmillan's  English  is  now  and  then 
jerky,  but  it  is  wonderfully  clear  and  good." 

Thomas   Chenery 

"  4.  3.  84.  Chenery  was  one  of  the  few  celebrities  I  have 
known,  and  it  may  be  worth  while  recording  what  he  seemed 


Thomas  Chenery  463 

on  the  side  which  was  the  only  one  exposed  to  my  view. 
He  was  my  friend  Anderson's  great  friend,  great  from  his 
Times  connection,  not  his  friendship.  Anderson  and  he  had 
been  at  Caius  together,  and,  being  both  some  years  older 
than  the  other  undergraduates,  had  naturally  been  thrown 
much  in  each  other's  society  and  had  formed  an  odd  sort  of 
connection  which  lasted  to  the  end. 

"  About  the  year  '69  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Chenery  at 
Brighton.  He  was  a  short,  thick-set,  very  short-necked  man, 
with  a  remarkably  dejected  expression,  a  somewhat  shy  man- 
ner, and  a  rather  sententious  way  of  speaking.  Since  he  has 
been  made  much  of  in  society  I  have  heard  of  his  '  courtly 
manners,'  and  the  Tunes  people  speak  (now  at  least)  of  his 
kindliness  and  consideration  for  his  subordinates.  This  all 
seems  a  joke  to  those  who  knew  him  at  home,  and  at  home 
only.  To  me  he  was  always  civil,  even  friendly ;  but  he 
gave  me  the  impression  of  being  by  nature  harsh  and  ill- 
tempered,  and  he  was  always  (probably  from  over-concen- 
tration when  at  work)  rather  Hstless  and  dejected.  He  was 
ready  to  chat  on  any  subject,  but  seemed  interested  in 
nothing,  and  always  took  the  sceptical  and  nil  admirari  line. 
His  real  interest,  of  course,  lay  in  Arabic  and  Hebrew,  in 
which  he  became  really  great.  His  work  he  managed  to 
do  without  ever  seeming  to  do  it.  He  showed  in  conver- 
sation no  special  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  the  day,  and 
even  less  than  ordinary  interest.  I  knew  quite  well  that  he 
was  high  on  the  Times  staff,  as  I  had  heard  Butt  (now  a 
judge)  say  that  he  had  just  been  with  Delane,  and  Delane 
had  mentioned  Chenery  as  the  best  man  he  knew  for  writing 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  From  this  special  talent  Chenery 
was  in  the  habit  of  staying  in  the  office  to  write  the  article 
on  any  late  debate.  Except  to  men  with  whom  he  was  more 
intimate  than  me,  he  always  spoke  about  the  Times  as  an 
outsider  ;  he  did  not  at  all  avoid  talking  of  the  Times,  but 
he  said  just  what  anyone  might  have  said,  though  of  course 


464  /^-  H.  Quick 

he  knew  that  I  knew  he  was  on  it.  He  was  an  eccentric. 
When  I  first  became  acquainted  with  him  he  had  taken  a 
house  in  Eaton  Place,  which  however  he  never  fiirnished 
except  on  the  ground- floor.  Here  he  worked  hard  (he  was 
translating  the  '  Assemblies  of  Harin '  at  the  time)  some  eight 
hours  a  day.  He  then  went  out  to  dine,  thence  to  the  Times 
office,  where  he  wrote  his  article  some  time  in  the  night. 
How  a  man  who  was  engrossed  in  such  work  as  the  *  Assem- 
blies of  Harin '  could  have  picked  up  knowledge  enough  to 
write  on  the  topics  of  the  day  was  to  me  a  marvel.  He 
must  have  had  a  strange  power  of  concentrating  his  mind 
on  any  set  task.  His  ambition  was  to  become  known  in 
Germany  as  an  Arabic  scholar,  and  in  this  he  succeeded. 
With  this  taste  and  lots  of  money  he  took  the  editorship  of 
the  Tipies,  in  which  people  say  he  did  not  succeed,  and  he 
slaved  at  this  till  he  killed  himself.  (He  died  at  the  age  of 
56,  and  left  ^20,000.)  A  melancholy  fate  !  What  a  hero  he 
would  have  been  thought  if  he  had  thus  sacrificed  himself  with 
a  nobler  motive." 

Quarterly  Review  on  Tennyson 

"  14.  3.  84.  I  have  just  been  reading  the  Quarterly  Re- 
vie7v's  first  notice  of  Tennyson  (April,  1833).  It  is  a  great 
literary  curiosity.  The  reviewer  sat  down,  not  of  course  to 
speak  the  truth,  but  to  ridicule  a  man  whom  he  took  for  a 
poetaster.  On  the  whole,  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  must  have  been  a  very  shrewd  person  who  ought  to 
have  formed  a  truer  judgment,  but  the  Quarterly  Review  had 
taken  up  the  role  of  putting  down  pretenders  in  poetry,  and 
having  snuffed  out  Keats,  it  set  to  work  to  do  the  same  by 
Tennyson.  The  writer  takes  up  the  line  of  much  praise,  and 
fastens  with  wonderful  skill  on  the  weak  things  in  the  volume, 
which  it  praises  as  the  beauties.  Tennyson  has  altered  or 
expunged   almost   everything   quoted.     Here  we   see  what   a 


Rusk  in  465 

crime  it  is  to  write  for  anything  but  truth.  A  man  with 
much  critical  acumen  reviews  some  of  the  finest  poems  in 
the  language,  and,  because  he  looks  for  blemishes  only,  he 
pronounces  the  poems  rubbish  and  to  all  appearance  suc- 
ceeds in  proving  them  rubbish  !  We,  who  regard  Tennyson 
as  a  great  poet,  wonder  how  even  a  great  poet  could  produce 
the  Lotus  Eaters  at  the  age  of  22.  The  critic,  regarding 
Tennyson  as  an  ordinary  young  man,  wonders  that  even  an 
ordinary  young  man  could  write  such  poor  stuff.  And  the  critic 
is  not  a  poor  simpleton  either.  The  intellectual  blundering 
comes  of  party  spirit." 

Ruskin 

"With  a  view  to  lecture-writing,  I  have  been  looking  at 
Ruskin's  Edinburgh  Lectures,  which  are  models  of  what  lec- 
tures should  be.  The  first  two  lectures  were  a  revelation  to 
me  in  '54,  and  have  affected  my  thoughts  and  pursuits  in 
many  ways  ever  since.  Almost  our  greatest  benefactor  is  the 
man  who  gives  us  a  new  permanent  interest,  and  Ruskin 
revealed  to  me  an  art  world  full  of  truths  and  problems 
which  aroused  in  me  the  most  intense  interest.  If  I  had 
only  been  able  to  draw,  I  should  probably  have  got  con- 
siderably involved  in  the  art  world,  but  my  fondness  for 
doing  something  found  no  satisfaction  here.  Still  Ruskin 
has  given  me  many  and  many  a  pleasant  hour,  and  has 
opened  my  eyes  to  much  that  I  could  not  have  seen  with- 
out him." 

Ruskin's  Notes,  No.  /F.  (1858) 

"  Beauty  of  expression  in  an  author  is  like  beauty  of  face 
in  a  woman.  We  cannot  but  look  at  it,  we  cannot  but  be 
interested  in  it,  whatever  they  may  say  or  do.  These  Notes 
of  Ruskin's,  thrown  off,  as  he  explains,  in  a  hurry  near  27 
years   ago,  and   referring   mostly   to   pictures   now  forgotten, 


466  R.  II.  Quick 

still  have  a  charm  about  them,  and  one  finds  them  excellent 
company.  It  is  marvellous  how  this  man  throws  from  him 
literary  pearls  as  carelessly  as  a  child  shakes  the  soap-bubbles 
from  a  tobacco-pipe.  One  of  his  finest  pieces  of  prose  is  the 
passage  on  poverty  in  his  eulogy  on  Edward  Frere  (p.  33)." 

Ruskin's  Hortus  Indus  us 

"  One  does  not  know  whether  to  be  more  pleased  or  vexed 
that  Ruskin  should  have  published  this  letter.  The  very  name 
implies  privacy.  It  is  indecent  to  behave  in  a  crowd  as  if  no 
one  were  present  but  one's  nearest  relatives.  Yet  Ruskin 
throws  down  the  wall  and  lets  the  public  in.  Much  of  the 
volume  should  not  have  been  published  at  all,  some  things, 
and  those  the  most  interesting,  not  till  after  his  death.  How 
quaint  his  feeling  that  he  half  dreads  a  world  without  a  Venice 
in  it  !  He  is  indeed  a  marvellous  man  with  astounding 
capacities  for  enjoyment  and  yet  so  miserable  !  His  sympathies 
embrace  everything  beautiful  in  creation.  Only  a  poet  could 
write  (p.  129), '  I  found  a  strawberry  growing  just  to  please  itself, 
as  red  as  a  ruby,  high  up  on  Yewdale  crag,  yesterday,  in  a  little 
corner  of  rock  all  its  own :  so  I  left  it  to  enjoy  itself.  It 
seemed  as  happy  as  a  lamb,  and  no  more  meant  to  be  eaten.' 
This  is  simpler  and  better  than  much  of  Wordsworth.  There 
is  a  fine  passage  on  the  Bible  (p.  128)  like  Maurice,  but  too 
long  for  me  to  copy. 

"  Ruskin's  mind  is  a  melancholy  study.  With  all  his  grand 
gifts  he  seems  to  me  to  have  been  sadly  led  estray  by  his  self- 
sufficiency.  He  used  to  have  a  perfect  abhorrence  of  things 
evil.  Woolner  (who  looked  upon  him  as  a  great  corrupter  of 
art)  told  me  a  story  which  proves  this.  Eastlake,  Ruskin,  and 
a  third,  whose  name  I  forget,  were  deputed  to  look  through 
Turner's  portfolios  after  Turner's  death,  and  they  came  upon 
some  exceedingly  indecent  drawings.  Ruskin  was  so  shocked 
that  he  shed  tears.    All  he  could  groan  out  was  '  Then,  after  all, 


Rusk  in  467 

he  must  have  been  a  bad  man  ! '  The  three  destroyed  the 
drawings  —  by  far  the  best  thing  they  could  have  done  —  but  a 
way  out  of  the  difficulty  which  was  of  doubtful  legality.  Well, 
now  in  his  old  age  Ruskin  seems  to  admire  *  fast '  young  ladies. 
He  writes,  '  I've  been  put  into  a  dreadful  passion  by  two  of  my 
cleverest  girl  pupils  "  going  off  pins  ! "  '  It  is  exactly  like  a  nice 
pear  getting  sleepy." 

Ruskiii's  Praeterita 

"  18.  I.  86.  We  schoolmasters  have  to  face  the  unpleasant 
truth  that  nearly  all  the  great  men  (literary  men  especially)  owe 
nothing  to  tis.  Does  the  schoolroom,  while  it  benefits  the 
ordinary  boy,  dwarf  or  ruin  the  original  boy?  Oreat  writers  we 
should  expect  to  find  the  roof  and  crown  of  those  who  received 
an  exclusively  literary  training,  but  in  most  cases  it  turns  out 
that  the  great  writer  has  never  been  to  school,  and  if  he  has, 
he  has  been  regarded  as  a  failure.  vSeeley  is  the  only  satis- 
factory instance  of  a  good  schoolmaster's-boy  turning  out  a  first- 
rate  writer.  J.  H.  Newman,  J.  S.  Mill,  Carlyle,  and  Ruskin 
escaped  the  schoolmaster  pretty  completely.  Tennyson  was  at 
a  small  coimtry  Grammar  School  (Louth),  and  Browning 
nowhere.  Matthew  Arnold,  by  the  way,  is  an  instance  against 
me."i 

A  '  repeater '  Journal 

"  24.  I.  86.  I  lately  proposed  to  Storr,  half  in  jest,  half  in 
earnest,  that  \\\t  Journal  of  Education  should  have  a  permanent 
section,  not  the  same  every  month,  but  recurring  like  a  decimal, 
though  not,  as  I  think,  with  diminishing  value.  The  great 
writers  will,  as  a  rule,  have  thought  the  truth  most  clearly  and 
expressed  it  most  appropriately,  so  that  what  they  have  said 

1  [<^uick  has  overlooked  some  obvious  instances,  —  W.  E.  Gladstone, 
Kinglake,  Froude,  Lecky,  J.  Morley,  Swinburne,  G.  O.  Trevelyan,  do  not 
exhaust  the  list.] 


468  R.  H.  Quick 

should  be  studied  again  and  again  by  those  who  need  that 
particular  truth.  But  in  these  days  no  one  will  stand  stale 
bread,  and  insists  on  hot  rolls  every  morning. 

"  On  every  subject  there  is  such  a  Babel  of  voices,  and 
directly  one  begins  to  study  a  subject  one  reads  and  reads  a 
host  of  people  who  write  about  it  and  about  it,  and  by  far  the 
greater  number  had  no  right  to  take  up  the  reader's  time  even 
for  five  minutes.  I  have  at  times  felt  inclined  to  be  angry 
with  publishers  for  ])utting  obstructions  in  the  way  of  new  men 
getting  a  hearing,  but  now  I  feel  inclined  to  bless  them  for 
it.  They  do  occasionally  close  the  mouth  of  a  wise  man, 
but  they  more  than  make  amends  for  this  by  silencing  whole 
armies  of  blockheads." 

H.  M.  Butler 

"  2.  12.  86.  I  yesterday  met  H.  M.  Butler  in  London,  and 
went  down  with  him  in  his  fly  to  Harrow.  Tired  as  he  was,  he 
talked  pretty  well  all  the  way. 

"  In  these  notes,  though  I  write  only  for  myself,  I  have 
always  kept  in  mind  that  after  my  departure  ad  plures  the 
books  might  become  publici  juris,  so  I  have  been  only  too 
careful  not  to  record  conversations  with  friends  in  whom  the 
public  take  an  interest.  But  yesterday's  conversation  was  well 
worth  recording.  The  character  of  the  Master  of  Trinity,  to 
be  installed  to-morrow,  is  by  no  means  easy  to  understand,  and 
I  can  fancy  people  who  have  to  do  with  him  getting  the  most 
discordant  notions  of  him.  I  have  seen  as  many  sides  of  him, 
perhaps,  as  any  one  now  living,  and  conscious  as  I  am  of  his 
wants  in  some  respects,  I  have  a  genuine  admiration  for  him. 
He  is  one  of  the  most  noble-minded  men  I  have  known.  There 
is  not  a  vestige  of  littleness  about  him.  He  seems  incapable 
of  envy,  hatred,  malice,  or  any  uncharitableness  ;  and  he  has  an 
enthusiasm  for  what  is  noble  in  great  literature  and  great  men. 
Characteristically  he  nearly  wrecked  his  worldly  prospects  by 


Dr.  H.  M.  Butler  469 

preaching  lO  the  Queen  a  eulogy  of  Lord  Lawrence,  and  his 
admiration  for  Gordon  was  for  a  while  a  kind  of  ruling  passion 
with  him.  Some  men  have  intellects  remarkable  not  for  their 
strength,  but  for  their  restlessness.  I  should  say  this  was  true, 
not  of  Butler's  intellect,  but  of  his  imagination.  He  never 
soars  into  poetic  regions,  but  he  iiever  wearies  of  calling  up  the 
past  and  living  again  in  memory.  This  is  the  cause  of  one  of 
his  defects.  People  have  spoken  of  his  power  of  sympathy. 
This  seems  to  me  a  mistake.  Butler  is  immensely  sympathetic 
in  velle,  but  not  in  esse  ox  posse  ;  for  Butler  is  so  much  wrapped 
up  in  the  image  his  own  mind  calls  up  that  he  has  no  notion 
whatever  of  what  is  going  on  in  the  mind  of  his  companion. 
Now  as  Butler  is  one  of  the  most  simple  and  guileless  of  the 
human  race  and  as  he  delights  in  exercising  the  art  in  which  he 
is  so  great,  the  art  of  expression,  he  naturally  lets  one  see  all 
that  is  going  on  in  his  mind.  One  sees  therefore  that  in  this 
one  is  in  the  superior  position,  that  I  for  instance  know  his 
thoughts  and  he  does  not  know  mine.  Yesterday  I  wanted  to 
talk  to  him  about  a  matter  in  which  he  takes  a  great  interest, 
but  naturally  not  so  much  as  I  do.  I  went  to  see  him  about 
this,  and  had  told  him  there  was  something  special  I  wanted  to 
see  him  about,  but  there  was  no  possibility  of  bringing  the 
subject  within  the  range  of  his  ideas.  I  know,  of  course,  that 
many  would  say  he  did  not  want  to  have  the  subject  broached, 
but  /  know  it  was  not  so.  For  at  least  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  he  gave  a  most  elaborately  detailed  account  of  E.'s  life 
from  the  time  of  the  first  cold  she  caught,  to  her  present 
condition  at  Davos.  What  a  wonderful  feat  of  memory  it 
was  !  If  /  don't  post  up  my  diary  almost  daily,  I  can  never 
remember  what  I  was  doing  the  day  before  yesterday,  and  here 
was  Butler  remembering  her  whole  life  as  if  he  had  a  photo- 
graph of  it  in  his  mind.  I  afterwards  showed  him  a  Harrow 
broadsheet  of  Dec.  1846,  the  first  in  which  his  name  appeared. 
It  might  generally  be  said  of  Butler,  as  of  Gladstone  (whom  he 
in  several  points  resembles),  that  there  is  only  one  thing  more 


470  R.  //.  Quick 

difficult  than  to  get  him  to  take  up  a  subject,  and  that  is  when 
he  has  taken  it  up  to  get  him  to  drop  it.  But,  as  I  knew,  there 
was  no  difficulty  in  exciting  his  interest  here.  He  was  at  once 
fascinated  by  it,  and  I  believe  he  would  contentedly  have  gone 
on  talking  about  it  all  night." 

Thackeray  and  Swift.     A  Comparison 

"  12.  2.  88.  About  35  years  ago  I,  then  an  undergraduate 
at  Cambridge,  heard  Thackeray  give  there  his  Lectures  on  the 
Humourists.  It  was  reading,  not  lecturing  proper,  but  it  was 
the  most  delightful  and  most  musical  reading  imaginable.  The 
wonderful  beauty  of  Thackeray's  prose  came  out  as  that  of 
Beethoven's  melodies  comes  out  when  Joachim  plays  them, 
and  after  all  these  years  the  music  is  in  my  head  still.  What 
I  remember  best  is  the  contrasted  pair  of  portraits,  Addison 
and  Swift.  How  well  I  remember,  '  If  you  happened  to  be  his 
inferior  in  intellect,  which,  with  all  respect  for  the  present 
company,  I  think  only  too  probable.'  On  reading  these  letters 
of  Thackeray's  I  am  reminded  of  the  Journal  to  Stella  and  I  see 
much  resemblance  between  these  giants.  Thackeray  has  been 
accused  of  cynicism,  of  arrogance,  of  snobbery,  just  as  Swift 
was,  and  the  charges  in  both  cases  are  only  superficially  true. 
Both  were  men  of  deep  feeling  who  assumed  a  cynicism  to 
disguise  a  deep  tenderness.  Both  were  melancholy  men, 
weary  of  existence.  Both  exposed  the  meanness  of  humanity 
with  a  painful  consciousness  of  their  own  share  in  it." 

Matthe7v  ArtiohVs  Death 

"  17.  4.  88.  We  have  lost  ^l.  Arnold.  He  died  suddenly 
at  Liverpool  on  the  15th  [15  Ap.,  '88].  Just  now  I  naturally 
think  of  his  kindness.  He  was  not  self-centred,  like  distin- 
guished people  in  general,  but  he  took  a  genuine  interest  in 
the  concerns  of  other  people.     I  was  very  much  struck  by  this 


John  Bright  471 

one  evening  when  I  had  been  dining  with  him  at  Byron  House 
(his  house  at  Harrow).  He  asked  me  about  my  work,  seemed 
quite  shocked  at  the  amount  of  time  I  spent  on  the  correction 
of  exercises  out  of  school,  and  remonstrated  with  me  quite 
severely  about  it.  I  have  often  thought  of  this  as  a  rare 
interest  shown  in  another's  affairs  and  of  a  genuine  effort  to  set 
things  right  and  not  fall  back  on  our  usual  '  No  business  of 
mine.'  " 

John  Bi'ight 

"  7  July,  '73.  Last  evening  I  had  an  opportunity  of  talking 
to  no  less  a  man  than  John  Bright.  I  got  an  impression  of  a 
much  stronger  man  than  one  has  from  his  photographs,  not  to 
say  caricatures.  He  is  very  easy  to  talk  to  —  talks  very  simply, 
without  any  kind  of  affectation,  even  the  affectation  of  polite- 
ness. He  is  quite  the  Quaker  in  his  bluntness,  but  he  talks 
with  you,  not  at  you,  asks  all  sorts  of  questions,  seemed  a  good 
deal  surprised  by  what  I  told  him  of  the  different  scales  of 
charges  here.  He  said  he  had  never  been  at  much  of  a  school 
himself  and  had  left  early.  He  gave  some  parliamentary 
anecdotes,  two  or  three  about  his  own  repartees,  which  were 
not  particularly  happy.  Once  they  were  trying  to  get  a  member 
to  shorten  a  speech,  when  he  whispered  to  a  neighbour,  '  I 
can't,  I've  sent  it  to  the  papers.' 

"My  impression  of  Bright  is  a  pleasing  one.  He  seems  to 
me  a  good-natured  creature,  one  can  like  well  enough,  if  one 
does  not  happen  to  be  a  bull." 


472  R.  H.  Qinck 


PREACHING  AND   LECTURING 

Sermon-writing,  a  peep  behind  the  scenes 

"9.9.67.  My  old  difficulty  about  sermons  is  stronger 
than  ever.  I  sit  down  to  write  and  the  operation  seems  like 
wringing  a  towel  which  is  nearly  dry.  After  great  labour  only 
a  iew  drops  fall.  The  reason  is,  1  suspect,  that  my  thoughts 
and  interests  have  long  been  engrossed  by  didactics.  When  I 
first  took  orders  I  had  a  great  interest  in  the  practical  part  of 
the  High  Church  system  and  an  enthusiasm  against  imputed 
righteousness.  But  this  interest  died  out,  partly,  I  think, 
because  the  High  Church  professed  to  be  a  universal  system 
and  was  not.  For  the  intellectual  religious  ideas  of  the  school 
to  which  I  now  belong  I  never  had  any  enthusiasm,  though 
I  don't  see  why  such  an  enthusiasm  should  be  impossible. 
I  therefore  went  off  to  school  teaching,  in  which  I  am  really 
interested,  and  the  consequence  is  that  the  only  religious  ideas 
with  which  my  mind  is  conversant  are  quite  elementary  and  so 
vague  that  they  can  hardly  be  worked  into  sermons.  Besides 
all  this  I  never  had  any  facihty  in  thinking  or  in  expressing 
thought  on  any  subject,  so  that  I  am  much  more  surprised 
that  I  ever  wrote  sermons  than  that  I  cannot  write  them  now. 
In  spite  of  all  this  I  sometimes  think  I  ought  to  aim  at 
preaching,  but  the  task  appalls  me.  A  preacher  is  in  fact  a 
professor  of  the  theory  of  life  — not  exactly  an  easy  subject  to 
take  up  !  Most  of  us  confine  ourselves  to  quoting  and  com- 
menting on  the  Text-book  which  our  audience  have  nearly  by 
heart,  but  what  is  wanted  is  to  show  the  appUcation  of  the 
Text-book,  and  just  at  this  point  our  preachers  fail.  On 
Sunday  I  shall  have  to  preach  an  old  sermon  on  '  Effort  makes 
the  Christian.'     Now  in  this  matter  it  seems  very  hard  to  make 


Class  morality  473 

phenomena  square  with  theory.  No  doubt  one's  view  of 
phenomena  is  very  partial  indeed  and  the  difficulty  may  arise 
entirely  from  one's  mistakes  in  estimating  them,  but  to  refuse 
to  estimate  them  at  all  is  fatal  to  one's  intellectual  honesty. 
As  far  as  I  can  judge,  then,  there  is  very  little  effort  in  any 
one.  Most  people  seem  to  drift  along  with  the  ordinary  habits 
and  ordinary  morality  of  the  class  to  which  they  belong.  I 
used  to  think  that  if  a  man  indulged  consciously  in  any  vice  this 
vice  would  corrupt  his  whole  nature  like  the  fly  in  the  ointment. 
But  experience  does  not  seem  to  confirm  this  belief.  Private 
debauchery  does  not  prevent  a  man  from  maintaining  a  high 
public  morality.  As  far  as  one  can  judge,  a  vice  is  ruinous 
to  a  man  if  it  is  condemned  by  the  class  to  which  he  belongs 
and  not  otherwise.  So  the  class  standard  of  morals  is  that 
which  most  people  adopt,  and  this  standard  never  makes  great 
demands.  Whenever  the  class  is  particularly  tempted  in  any 
direction,  the  standard  admits  of  lax  conduct  in  that  particular. 
Hence  it  is  that  whole  classes  are  accused  by  the  outside  world 
of  special  sins.  The  old  proverb  makes  every  miller  a  thief, 
and  fifty  years  ago  every  attorney  was  considered  a  rogue. 
Now,  such  a  general  feeUng  could  not  have  existed  unless  a 
very  unusually  large  proportion  of  millers  or  attorneys  were  less 
honest  than  their  neighbours.  If  this  fact  be  admitted,  the 
explanation  of  it  may  easily  be  found  in  the  opportunities  for 
fraud  which  their  businesses  are  constantly  affording  them. 
The  milkman  who  stole  flour  or  the  miller  who  privately  milked 
his  neighbour's  cows  would  be  a  very  great  rascal,  but  we 
cannot  say  the  same  of  the  milkman  who  habitually  robs  his 
customers  or  the  miller  who  helps  himself  out  of  the  sacks  of 
wheat  entrusted  to  him.  The  lodging-house  keeper  who  stole 
beefsteaks  at  the  butcher's  would  be  capable  of  any  theft,  but 
we  should  be  quite  wrong  to  infer  this  from  her  consuming  the 
steaks  of  her  lodgers.  Similarly  we  should  know  what  to  think 
of  a  doctor  if  he  pocketed  money  he  found  lying  about  in  a 
patient's  house,  but  not  if  he  paid  a  visit,  the  sole  object  of 


474  ^'  ^-  Q^f'i(^k 

which  was  to  transfer  the  same  amount  from  his  patient's 
pocket  to  his  own.  Yet  supposing  the  money  not  to  be  missed 
the  patient  is  wronged  quite  as  much  in  the  last  case  as  in  the 
first.  Now  these  class  failings,  which  I  think  we  may  assume 
to  be  the  failings  of  the  majority,  prove  that  the  majority  do 
not  aim  at  a  high  standard,  and  yet  the  majority  are  not  bad 
fellows." 

*  Woe  unto  you  that  are  rich  ' 

An   Unpreached  Sermon 

"6  Sept.  '87.  I  have  long  thought  that  sermons  might  be, 
and  therefore  ought  to  be,  much  better  than  they  are.  But  it 
mostly  happens  that  a  man  has  to  preach  either  a  great  deal 
or  very  seldom,  and  neither  condition  is  favourable  to  the 
composition  of  good  sermons.  If  a  man  has  to  preach  once  a 
week  he  ought  to  study  and  think  and  write  for  some  hours 
every  day ;  but  this  is  what  the  large  majority  of  persons  have 
not  inclination  or  energy  for.  The  necessity  of  preaching 
often  without  giving  much  time  to  preparation  of  course  drives 
a  man  into  safe  platitudes,  and  then  the  salt  loses  all  savour 
of  meaning.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  man  has  to  preach 
seldom,  he  mostly  finds,  when  the  time  comes,  that  he  is  not  in 
the  habit  of  thinking,  or  at  all  events  of  thinking  methodically, 
and  if  he  does  in  the  end  find  anything  to  say,  he  says  it 
crudely  and  at  the  best  produces  an  essay  rather  than  a  sermon. 
If  one  had  time  and  energy,  the  best  plan  would  be  to  take  a 
subject  and  write  an  essay  upon  it,  saying  everything  one  really 
thinks,  and  afterwards  write  a  sermon  in  which  the  most  suit- 
able thoughts  were  selected  and  expanded. 

"  Nobody  would  dare,  or  ought  to  dare,  to  say  exactly  what 
he  thought  and  everything  he  thought  in  a  sermon,  and  I 
suppose  most  men  would  be  afraid  to  commit  their  difficulties 
to  paper  at  all.  The  consequence  is  that  '  edifying '  subjects 
are  selected  and  the  most  vital  parts  of  the  Christian  religion 


A  paradoxical  text  475 

hardly  touched  upon.  Our  Lord's  most  emphatic  utterances 
often  took  the  form  of  paradoxes  and  so  seem  to  challenge  the 
attention  of  all  who  would  learn  from  Him,  but  these  paradoxes 
are  quietly  ignored  by  almost  all  the  professional  commentators 
on  His  words.  I  do  not  remember  to  have  heard  '  He  that 
hateth  not  his  father  and  his  mother  cannot  be  my  disciple,'  or 
'  Woe  unto  you  that  are  rich,'  so  much  as  quoted  in  a  sermon, 
and  it  would  be  considered  strange  indeed  if  a  preacher  were 
to  select  such  a  verse  as  his  text.  Yet  there  can  be  no  manner 
of  doubt  that  these  are  among  the  Kernspriiche  of  Christianity. 
"  I  should  like  to  preach  from  some  of  these  texts,  but  I  do 
not  know  whether  it  would  be  possible.  Take  for  example 
the  words  '  Woe  unto  you  that  are  rich,'  &c.  What  does  one 
believe,  and  what  dare  anyone  say  on  this  subject?  One  is 
instantly  met  by  questions  of  all  kinds.  Do  the  words  of  our 
Lord  establish  {ceteris pa ril> its)  the  superiority  of  poverty  over 
riches?  The  Roman  Church  says  yes,  and  praises  voluntary 
poverty.  Again,  how  are  the  dangers  of  riches  to  be  avoided  ? 
How  is  the  man  with  great  possessions  to  cease  to  be  a  rich 
man  in  the  sense  in  which  our  Lord  uses  the  words?  If  it  is 
possible  for  a  man  with  possessions  to  cease  to  be  rich  without 
giving  up  property,  may  not  a  man  without  wealth  cease  to  be 
poor  without  acquiring  property?  Our  Lord  seems  to  me  to 
be  declaring  what  He  declares  in  many  forms,  that  for  us  there 
is  no  way  of  possessing  or  enjoying  anything  except  by 
devoting  it  to  a  higher  service  than  our  own.  So  long  as  a 
man  thinks  of  his  possessions,  whether  wealth,  time,  or  talents, 
as  his  own,  he  cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven  any 
more  than  the  camel  can  pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle. 
It  is  only  when  he  feels  that  he  has  nothing,  that  he  can 
possess  all  things.  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  is  the  keystone 
of  Christian  morahty  ;  but  I  feel  the  difficulty  of  making  such  a 
high  ideal  square  with  the  facts  of  daily  life.  One  must  also 
observe  that  the  great  mass  of  Christians  have  no  intellectual 
perception  of  this  truth,  though  they  may  more  or  less  feel  it. 
The  ordinary  rich  man  has  the  most  fantastic  notions  of  the 


476  R.  H.  Quick 

'rights  of  property.'  In  many  cases  he  devotes  it  to  the 
gratification  of  his  own  whims  without  the  least  regard  to 
the  effect  of  his  expenditure  on  other  people.  He  has  oddly 
enough  persuaded  himself  that  these  rights  of  property  do  not 
cease  when  the  property  has  ceased  to  be  in  any  sense  his, 
when  in  fact,  as  far  as  the  property  is  concerned,  he  has  ceased 
to  exist.  He  is  quite  indignant  when  he  hears  of  laws  limiting 
the  power  of  testators  or  abrogating  some  decree  of  an  ordinary 
mortal  who  livetl  in  the  i6th  century.  No  one  contends  for 
the  right  of  parliament  to  settle  anything  in  perpetuity,  and  yet 
some  people  suppose  such  a  right  to  be  vested  in  the  dullest 
blockhead  who  gets  hold  of  ^^1,000  and  can  keep  it  till  he  dies. 
"  The  ordinary  theory  then  of  Christians  is  unchristian  if  not 
antichristian.  But  supposing  it  can  be  altered,  supposing  we 
could  all  rise  to-morrow  with  the  firm  conviction  that  we  were 
bound  to  make  the  most  of  everything  for  the  benefit  of  others  ; 
or,  if  this  is  too  violent  an  assumption,  suppose  the  change  to 
be  wrought  by  degrees.  Even  then  the  supposition  appears 
absurd.  One  might  as  well  suppose  a  change  in  the  physical 
as  in  the  moral  condition  of  life.  But  what  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  one  may  ask  how  would  one's  own  life  be  affected  if 
one  tried  to  employ  all  one's  time,  talents  and  money  in  this 
way?  The  world  may  be  divided  into  two  classes,  those  who 
have  much  leisure  and  those  who  have  little  or  none.  The 
greater  part  of  us  grind  on  at  the  work  of  our  calling,  for  the 
most  part  mechanically,  and  when  our  work  is  finished  we 
have  no  energy  left  for  strenuous  thought  or  action  of  any  kind. 
In  fact  we,  in  a  great  measure,  give  up  the  exercise  of  our  wills. 
Our  daily  work  comes,  and  we  do  it  as  a  matter  of  habit  and 
obligation.  Our  leisure  comes,  and  we  fall  in  with  any  amuse- 
ment that  offers,  not  even  taking  the  pains  to  select  among  possible 
modes  of  relaxation  the  best,  but  taking  the  first  that  presents 
itself.  It  sometimes  seems  to  me  that  if  we  have  a  personal 
spiritual  foe  he  must  have  resolved  to  let  alone  people  living  in 
this  way.  They  might  no  doubt  be  tempted  to  lead  much  less 
innocent  lives,  but  then  on  the  other  hand  if  they  were  roused 


Modern  school  sermons  ^'j'] 

they  might  soar  much  higher.  Thought  would  destroy  the 
paradise  of  such  men,  and  they  would  have  to  rise  to  the 
realms  above  or  sink  to  the  abyss  below.  .  .  . 

"  This  is  the  way  in  which  my  thoughts  wander  about  when 
I  want  to  write  a  sermon.  In  the  end  1  am  obliged  to  write 
against  time  to  get  it  finished  at  all. 

"  How  much  of  my  life  have  I  wasted  from  knowing  of  some 
difficult  task  that  ought  to  be  done,  and,  while  failing  to  do  it, 
allowing  myself  to  do  nothing  else  !" 

Dr.  Butlet^s  Harrow  Sermons 

"  Unaffected  and  sensible,  with  good  allusions  to  school  life 
in  general  and  public  school  life,  or  rather  Harrow  life,  in 
particular.  These  sermons,  like  Temple's,  show  some  singular 
modern  characteristics.  The  old  spirit  of  devotion  to  the 
Person  of  Christ  and  of  aspiration  after  holiness  like  His,  is  not 
found  in  them.  Still  less  is  there  an  allusion  to  a  future  state ; 
at  least  the  religion  of  these  men  has  no  particular  reference 
to  such  a  state.  I  am  well  aware  that  most  of  the  religion  of 
the  pulpit  nowadays  which  is  taken  from  the  old  religion  is 
purely  conventional,  and  this  no  doubt  has  caused  men  who 
recognise  the  necessity  of  some  connection  between  their  words 
and  thoughts  to  run  into  the  extreme  of  saying  less  than  they 
really  feel.  But  after  making  every  allowance  on  this  ground 
one  cannot  help  feeling  the  difference  between  the  religion  of 
St  Paul  and  that  of  the  Temple  school  among  ourselves." 

Le  sermon  c'est  rhonune 

"  6  Jnne,  '75.  Very  few  sermons  can  be  interesting  from  the 
profound  thought  they  contain  or  the  rhetorical  fireworks  they 
discharge,  and  ordinary  sermons  haye  no  interest  whatever  unless 
they  are  felt  to  be  the  sincere  utterance  of  what  the  preacher 
himself  thinks  and  feels. 


478  R.  If.  Quick 

"  We  had  an  odd  instance  of  this  to-day.  Blank  preached  a 
sermon  on  the  text,  '  The  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon  Peter.' 
We  have  always  decried  Blank's  sermons  because  there  is 
generally  so  much  tinsel  about  the  language  that  the  preacher 
must  think  he  is  '  doing  it.'  But  to-day  in  his  remarks  on 
personal  influence  there  was  nothing  at  all  stilted  in  the 
language.  There  were  however  three  things  which  seemed  to 
throw  a  doubt  on  Blank's  sincerity.  First,  there  was  as  usual 
an  apparently  artificial  manner.  However,  all  who  have  tried 
know  that  this  defect  is  often  quite  unavoidable.  Secondly,  he 
once  or  twice  after  delivering  the  first  part  of  a  sentence  with 
great  emphasis  found  he  had  read  it  wrong  and  looked  back 
to  put  in  or  leave  out  a  negative.  This  is  most  damaging. 
You  want  to  feel  that  the  man  is  speaking  to  you,  not  merely 
reporting  what  he  or  somebody  else  had  said  or  thought  at 
some  other  time.  This  personal  relation  is  in  fact  the  very 
life  of  the  sermon,  and  each  stumble  such  as  I  have  named  gives 
it  a  deadly  blow.  And  lastly,  we  have  always  supposed  that 
Blank  neither  exercised  nor  tried  to  exercise  much  personal 
influence  on  the  hoys  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  Still, 
for  all  that  the  sermon  was  so  little  conventional  in  its  tone 
that  I  am  convinced  it  was  very  genuine  indeed,  and  I  feel 
absolutely  certain  that  if  John  Smith  had  preached  this  sermon 
it  would  have  been  spoken  of  and  remembered  as  one  of  the 
best  sermons  of  Harrovian  modern  times,  but  from  Blank  it 
passes  altogether  without  notice."^ 

Social  Scieyice   Congress  and  Speaking 

"i2  Oct.  '75.  Brighton.  1  have  been  at  divers  Social 
Science  meetings  in  the  last  few  days,  not  altogether  with 
profit  or  satisfaction.     The   chief  good  of  these   meetings  is 

1  Can  it  be  from  Blank's  sermons  that  Quick  quotes  the  following 
delightful  illustration  of  the  unreality  of  school  sermons,  '  Let  your  pleas- 
antries, my  younger  brethren,  be  like  the  coruscations  in  the  summer  sky, 
lambent  yet  innocuous'? 


Congress  oratory  479 

that  they  make  reformers  personally  acquainted  with  one 
another,  so  that  one  feels  one  is  working  with  real  men  and 
women,  not  with  mere  names.  I  suppose  too  that  something 
is  done  in  the  way  of  spreading  notions,  but  very  little.  Each 
man  or  woman  is  keen  on  just  the  truth  he  or  she  has  struck 
out,  and  does  not  take  any  real  interest  in  what  other  people 
have  struck  out.  When  one  hears  this  or  that  educational 
truth  urged  with  vehemence,  one  remembers  how  important  it 
seemed  when  one  first  made  it  out,  but  now  it  has  become 
trite  to  one,  and  though  really  quite  as  true  and  quite  as 
important  as  at  first  it  runs  some  risk  of  being  neglected  by  us. 
How  can  truth  keep  its  freshness  for  us  ?  I  wish  some  speaker 
or  preacher  would  tell  us  this. 

"  As  a  rule  the  speakers  one  hears  rather  bore  one.  Now 
and  then  (very  rarely)  one  hears  a  man  who  by  careful  practice 
has  made  himself  a  good  speaker  and  who  gives  one  pleasure. 
The  next  best  speakers  are  sensible  people  who  hav'n't  practised 
at  all  and  simply  say  what  they  have  to  say  and  then  leave  off. 
But  the  speaker  who  bores  one  is  the  man  who  has  had  a  great 
deal  of  practice  and  rather  fancies  he  is  doing  it.  There  are  a 
good  many  such  at  these  meetings.  I  especially  tremble  when 
a  clergyman  gets  up.  He  is  likely  to  pound  away  in  a 
hortatory  manner  and  *  make  a  speech,'  not  say  anything.  If 
he  uses  his  hands  and  arms  he  is  certain  to  be  a  nuisance. 
Practice  does  not  at  all  necessarily  make  perfect  in  speaking ; 
indeed,  common  practice,  like  much  so-called  practice  at  the 
piano,  really  does  more  harm  than  good." 


LectiD'es,  extempore  or  7vritten 

"  I  lectured  last  night  (11  Nov.  '75)  for  Mr  Payne  on  the 
Jesuit  schools.  I  had  not  written  the  lecture  but  had  got  up 
the  subject  pretty  carefully  and  managed  to  talk  for  an  hour  or 
more  without  much   difficulty.      However,  I  can't  tell  much 


480  R.  //.   Quick 

about  the  advantage  or  disadvantage  of  extempore  lecturing, 
nor  of  my  powers  or  weakness  that  way,  till  I  have  lectured  to 
an  audience  that  does  not  write.  Most  of  the  ladies  tear  away 
with  their  pens  and  pencils  and  the  lecture  becomes  mere 
dictation.  I  have  no  doubt  the  pleasantest  lectures  for  an 
educated  audience  are  written  essays  such  as  Sir  James  Stephen 
used  to  give  us  at  Cambridge.  Of  course  it  may  be  said  that 
the  advantage  of  hearing  such  lectures  over  reading  them  ])y 
one's  own  fireside  is  small  and  that  the  lecturer  had  better  give 
up  delivering  them  and  simply  publish.  But  a  man's  thoughts 
do  come  more  forcibly  and  freshly  when  he  addresses  them  to  a 
number  of  people  before  him  than  when  he  merely  sends  one 
in  print  what  he  has  written.  One  odd  thing  is  that  the  force 
of  what  he  says  seems  to  depend  partly  on  the  size  of  the 
audience  to  whom  he  says  it.  The  very  best  of  sermons  would 
sound  tame  and  dull  if  addressed  to  the  half-dozen  old  women 
and  the  dozen  children  who  form  an  afternoon  congregation. 
On  the  other  hand  even  commonplace  thoughts  get  some  life 
when  the  congregation  is  such  a  congregation  as  one  sees  at 
All  Saints'  or  St  Andrew's.  I  doubt  whether  Sir  J,  Stephen's 
lectures  would  have  come  with  much  force  if  he  had  read  them 
to  two  or  three  of  us  in  his  dining-room.  So  there  is,  I  think, 
a  raison  d'etre  for  lectures  which  are  carefully  written  essays. 
On  the  other  hand  the  unwritten  lecture  has  great  advantages  for 
a  less  educated  audience.  One  can  see  the  effect  everything  has, 
one  can  enlarge  on  what  interests,  explain  whatever  puzzles. 
One  can  look  one's  audience  in  the  face,  and  that  is  an 
immense  gain.  Unfortunately  this  incessant  writing  of  the 
ladies  at  the  College  of  Preceptors  deprives  one  of  this 
advantage.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  ideal  lecture  would 
be  after  this  manner  :  — The  lecturer  makes  a  careful  skeleton 
of  the  lecture,  gets  it  printed  and  distributes  it  before  the 
lecture.  He  then  requests  his  audience  not  to  write.  He  will 
have  carefully  prepared  what  he  is  going  to  say  and  he  will 
have  had  practice  enough  in  speaking  to  talk  in  tolerably  long 


Preachers  48 1 

sentences,  avoiding  small  jerky  utterances  on  the   one   hand 
and  the  appearance  of  an  e7ri8etfts  on  the  other. 

"  In  these  lectures  on  the  history  of  education  the  great 
matter  is  to  seize  on  principles  and  avoid  details  that  do  not 
directly  bear  on  these  principles." 

The  Power  of  Words 

"24  Nov.  '75.  Till  now  I  have  always  pooh-poohed  the 
lecturing  plan  of  teaching  and  attributed  very  little  importance 
to  words.  But,  after  all,  words  are  sometimes  more  powerful 
than  deeds.  On  Sunday  I  heard  a  lesson  read  from  Ecclesi- 
astes  and  I  remembered  the  power  the  words  once  had  over 
me.  Perhaps  my  conception  of  the  meaning  was  not  altogether 
that  of  the  writer  :  the  power  of  the  words  depends  as  much 
on  what  they  find  as  on  what  they  bring — as  much  and  more. 
But  to  despise  the  force  of  words  would  be  as  wise  as  to  despise 
the  power  of  a  lucifer-match  in  a  powder-magazine." 

Difficile  est  proprie  commnnia  dice  re 

"29  Nov.  '75.  I  preached  last  night  at  the  Hospital, 
Brighton,  on  the  text,  '  Whatsoever  a  man  sovveth  that  shall 
he  reap,'  and  I  could  not  have  taken  a  better  subject  for 
Advent  Sunday.  But  as  usual  I  failed  to  beat  out  what  I  had 
to  say  thin  enough.  To  do  this  takes  a  great  deal  of  time 
and  trouble  and  more  practice  than  I  have,  but  I  think  I  know 
what  to  aim  at.  Just  as  in  other  teaching  one  should  stick  to 
a  single  truth  and  make  it  plain  by  showing  it  in  many  of  its 
applications.  How  absurd  it  is  to  talk  of  a  good  sermon  or  a 
good  lecture  without  judging  ad  modinn  recipientis.  J.  W.  says 
that  she  heard  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  (Temple)  once  and  that 
was  quite  enough  for  her  :  he  was  a  very  poor  preacher.  I  say 
I  heard  Dean  Boyd  once  and  that  was  quite  enough  for  me. 
21 


482  R.  H.  Quick 

But  both  the  Bishop  and  the  Dean  are  good,  but  they  are 
good  for  different  people.  Boyd's  mind  is  full  of  the  common- 
places which  please  uneducated  people,  and  he  puts  these  in 
a  clear  and  j^leasant  form  so  that  they  recognise  their  own 
thoughts  verkld7't.  Temple  cares  for  the  questions  which  have 
no  existence  for  the  many,  but  those  who  think  about  the  same 
things  find  help  from  his  sermons.  So  it  is  really  absurd  for 
us  to  say  that  Boyd's  sermons  or  Temple's  are  good  without 
considering  the  audiences  addressed.  Words  that  at  times  are 
mighty  forces  prove  at  other  times  mere  sounds.  Rousseau 
reads  that  the  Athenian  prisoners  at  Syracuse  after  the  failure 
of  the  expedition  under  Nicias  were  well  treated  because  they 
could  repeat  Homer.  Rousseau  forthwith  sets  to  work  to 
learn  poetry  by  heart.  Rousseau  declaims  against  civilisation, 
and  the  whole  framework  of  society  is  shaken  by  his  words. 
Yes,  because  society  was  sick  and  Rousseau,  like  a  physician, 
described  the  symptoms  and  gave  what  seemed  the  true  the- 
ory of  the  malady.  If  society  had  been  sound,  Le  Contrat 
Social  would  perhaps  have  been  little  more  noticed  than  the 
ordinary  run  of  prize  exercises. 

"  But  I  am  wandering  from  sermons.  In  addressing  or- 
dinary congregations  one  should  avoid  any  train  of  thought 
which  will  be  foreign  to  their  minds.  So  one  is  driven  to  the 
commonplace.  But  though  some  commonplaces  are  flat, 
stale,  and  unprofitable,  there  are  others  which  really  contain 
the  deepest  truths  in  existence.  Linquenda  tellus,  &c.,  is 
commonplace  enough,  but,  as  Helps  says,  no  truth  should  be 
more  living  to  us.  So  we  may  take  notions  familiar  to  our 
hearers  as  to  us,  and  yet  we  may  feel  an  interest  in  these 
notions  and  may  interest  our  hearers.  Last  night  I  found  my 
audience  listening  when  I  talked  about  the  '  unlucky '  man, 
the  man  who  thinks  himself  persecuted  by  fortune,  who  always 
has  a  long  tale  why  this  or  that  has  not  succeeded  with  him. 
Here,  when  one  was  talking  about  what  the  audience  knew, 
one  had  no  difficulty  in  interesting  them." 


A  Sermon  of  Harvey  Goodwin  s        483 


Haruey  Goochvin  as  a  pj-eacher 

"26  Oct.  '79.  To-day  I  heard  Harvey  Goodwin  again  at 
the  University  Church.  Five  and  twenty  years  seem  to  have 
made  little  change  in  him,  and  what  change  there  is,  is,  I 
think,  for  the  better.  What  strikes  me  now,  as  it  did  then,  is 
the  genuine  goodness  and  simplicity  of  the  man.  He  never 
dreams  of  preaching  a  good  sermon,  but  simply  endeavours  to 
say  something  that  will  be  useful  to  his  hearers.  Now,  as  of 
old,  he  thinks  more  of  impressible  undergraduates  than  of 
unimpressible  dons.  His  text  to-day  was  *  Come,  let  us  reason 
together,'  and  the  sermon  was  addressed  to  freshmen.  He 
praised  the  ancient  University  education,  which  consisted  not 
in  learning  but  in  '  wrangling  '  or  reason.  Not  *  statuit  Newtonus,' 
but  '  recte  statuit '  :  everything  had  to  be  proved.  The 
modern  system,  according  to  H.  G.,  makes  men  credulous  in 
scientific  matters  and  disposed  to  rank  the  last  suggested 
hypothesis  with  the  theory  of  gravitation.  He  then  went  on  to 
point  out  how  much  of  truth  there  is  beyond  the  domain  of 
reasoning.  There  is  truth  in  music  which  you  cannot  reason 
about ;    there  is  truth  in  feeling,  truth  in  affection.     And  so, 

too,  there  is  truth  in  religious  belief. Now  the  chief  merit  in 

all  this  was  its  sincerity  and  earnestness.  H.  G.  used  to  be  a 
somewhat  awkward  mannerist,  but  we  got  attached  to  his 
mannerism.  This  has  somewhat  toned  down,  and  what  there 
is  left  of  it  is  almost  lost  sight  of  in  the  emphasis  with  which 
he  throws  himself  into  his  message." 

Manner 

"  About  manner  I  have  in  my  time  thought  and  in  these 
notes  written  a  good  deal.  It  is  very  hard  to  determine  the 
right  course.  The  effort  to  avoid  a  manner  may  lead  to  a 
manner  and  that  a  very  bad  one.      On   the  other  hand,  the 


484  ^.  H.   Quick 

mere  suspicion  of  an  assumed  manner  is  fatal  to  the  speaker's 
success.  The  best  way  I  know  is  to  hear  men  with  a  good 
manner  and  then  quite  unconsciously  one  catches  something 
of  it.  After  hearing  a  great  player  or  singer  the  ordinary 
player  or  singer  seems  to  catch  and  give  forth  a  kind  of  faint 
echo  to  their  excellence,  and  so  it  is  in  speaking.  Certainly 
bad  manner  is  very  catching.  I  used  to  suffer  from  D.'s 
extempore  speaking,  which  in  manner  was  very  bad.  In 
my  last  lecture  I  fancied  here  and  there  there  was  a  sound 
caught  from  Seeley's  lectures  which  I  heard  two  years  ago.  I 
think  I  must  go  to  his  lectures  to  pick  up  some  more." 

A  Lecture  on  Difficulties 

"19  June,  '78.  I  lectured  at  Westminster  to  the  Educa- 
tion Society  on  Difficulties.  There  were  not  a  dozen  people 
in  the  room,  but  we  had  some  interesting  discussion.  The 
point  most  canvassed  was.  What  is  thorough  learning?  Mr. 
Cooke,  a  drawing-master,  maintained  that  thoroughness  must 
always  be  relative,  not  absolute.  He  could  say  of  a  drawing 
that  it  was  good  or  bad  only  when  he  knew  the  pupil's  powers. 
One  point  he  raised  was  this  :  he  found  children  liked 
grotesque  figures  —  should  they  be  allowed  to  have  grotesque 
figures  to  copy  or  not?  In  his  natural  science  lessons  he 
found  boys  up  to  the  age  of  ten  or  so  always  ready  to  observe 
whatever  things  they  had  brought  before  them,  but  after  that 
age  they  seem  not  to  care  to  observe,  the  things  no  longer 
had  an  interest  for  them." 

A  Lecture  of  J.  R.  Seeley's 

"29  Oct.  '79.  To-day,  besides  giving  a  lecture,  I  have 
heard  one  from  Seeley.  The  lecture  was  marvellously  fine  ; 
hearing  such  a  lecture  is  an  event  in  one's  life.  Seeley  was 
examining  the  Church  in  the   5  th  century,  and    he   said   the 


A  Lecture  of  See  ley  s  485 

Roman  Empire  did  not  seem  to  the  people  of  that  age  to  pass 
away,  because  the  Roman  Empire  became  associated  in  their 
minds  with  Christianity.  He  then  considered  the  translation 
of  Christianity  into  Latin  Christianity,  and  he  said  that  Roman 
Catholicism  was  a  chemical  combination  of  two  religions, 
Romanity  and  Christianity,  religions  not  only  distinct  but  in 
some  respects  naturally  opposed.  The  way  in  which  Seeley 
expounded  his  theory  was  masterly,  and  to  hear  such  a  lecture 
is  an  event  in  one's  intellectual  history.  It  affects  one's  views 
of  things  for  ever  after.  There  is  after  all  a  good  deal  of 
difference  in  hearing  and  reading.  Hearing  a  first-rate  lecturer 
makes  far  more  impression.  If  this  is  the  case,  even  with 
people  accustomed  to  the  use  of  books,  how  much  more  with 
those  who  are  not  used  to  books  !  But  the  deficiencies  of  in- 
different lecturing  are  perhaps  more  striking  than  of  indifferent 
books.  What  a  queer  thing  the  English  respect  for  social 
position  is  !  When  Sir  James  Stephen  lectured  in  olden  times 
he  had  a  good  number  of  dons,  professors,  &c.,  to  hear  him, 
and  if  an  old  gentleman  with  a  title  and  a  good  social  standing 
were  to  come  again  and  lecture  the  dons  would  again  flock  to 
hear  him.  But  a  lecture  of  Seeley's  is  worth  all  the  lectures 
Sir  J.  S.  ever  gave,  and  as  far  as  I  observed  not  a  single  don 
goes  to  hear  him." 

Lecturers  —  H.  A.J.  Munro,  Dean  Stanley,  J.  Ruskin, 
C.  Wordsivorth 

"When  you  get  first-hand  knowledge  it  comes  more  freshly 
from  a  man  than  from  a  book.  This  is  true  even  when  the 
lecturer's  form  is  bad.  I  have  heard  H.  A.  J.  Munro  lecture 
on  a  classical  subject  and  Dean  Stanley  on  a  book  of  the  O.  T. 
Munro's  form  was  wretched,  but  one  felt  one  was  in  contact 
with  splendid  scholarship  and  this  was  a  great  advantage.  In 
Stanley's  case,  of  course,  the  form  might  have  been  good,  but 
he  had  not  put  his  knowledge  into  shape,  and    his  remarks, 


486  7?.  H.  Quick 

good  as  they  were,  came  out  in  a  jerky  way  which  was  not 
effective.  I  doubted  whether  reading  would  not  have  been 
better.  Except  from  first-rate  men  information  lectures  are  a 
simple  nuisance.  C.  used  to  read  up  ordinary  notes  on  the 
N.  T.,  and  just  reproduce  them.  So  far  as  they  were  altered 
they  lost  by  the  alteration 

"  Talking  of  natural  gifts,  I  once  was  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Working  Men's  College  in  Great  Ormond  Street,  when  Ruskin 
offered  to  speak  on  any  subject  suggested,  and  he  did  speak 
admirably  on  several  points  suggested  by  members  of  the 
audience.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  men  of  genius  to  have  this 
power,  but  others  —  Goldsmith,  Rousseau,  Thackeray  —  have 
been  entirely  without  it. 

"  Mandating,  as  the  Scotch  call  it,  does  not  quite  solve  the 
difficulty.  When  a  thing  has  been  learnt  by  heart,  and  even 
when  one  has  read  it  very  often,  it  loses  its  connection  with 
one's  present  thought  and  one  feels  oneself  vox  et  praeterea 
nihil.  There  is  then  a  tendency  to  read  or  recite  with  a 
manner  that  shows  one  is  as  it  were  reporting  one's  former  self 
rather  than  uttering  one's  present  thoughts.  The  effort  to 
avoid  this  leads  to  pomposity  of  manner  and  unnatural 
emphasis.  Sometimes  the  preacher  or  lecturer  adopts  a  stereo- 
typed manner  and  his  little  fish  have  the  voice  of  whales.  I 
myself  heard  Christopher  Wordsworth  (now  Bishop  of  Lincoln) 
announce    as   a    stupendous    truth,    '  We    shall    continue    the 

subject  on  a  future  occasion.' It  is  essential  to  most  lecturers 

that  they  should  be  able  to  look  at  their  hearers  and  see  the 
effect  of  what  they  are  saying.  The  other  day  I  put  on 
spectacles,  but  I  found  at  once  that  this  cut  me  off  from  my 
hearers,  whom  I  could  not  see  through  them." 

French  Conferences 

"Nov.  '69.  Last  night  I  went  to  a  Conference  (39,  Boule- 
vard des  Capucines).     Every  evening  somebody  lectures  there 


French  lecturer's  487 

and  gets  an  audience  at  a  franc  or  two  francs  each.  These 
popular  lectures  draw  so  well  that  one  must  go  at  least  half  an 
hour  beforehand  to  get  a  good  place,  and  a  quarter  to  get  any 
place  at  all.  Philarete  Charles,  Guillaume  Guizot  and  others 
get  overflowing  audiences  at  the  College  de  France.  The 
lecture  I  heard  from  Charles  was  very  amusing,  and  the 
audience  very  sympathetic  and  disorderly.  Although  the  lec- 
ture was  written  it  was  of  the  flashy  kind  and  was  delivered 
with  great  emphasis.  It  was  strongly  anti-catholic,  not  to  say 
anti-Christian.  He  lampooned  Lady  Byron  and  Mrs.  Stowe, 
both  of  whom  he  pronounced  strait-laced  Calvinists.  Guizot 
fib,  who  is  lecturing  on  Life  and  Works  of  Moliere,  is  much 
more  finished.  He  has  nothing  written,  but  speaks  very  well, 
slowly  and  distinctly,  but  without  hesitation.  The  other  lec- 
turers I  have  heard,  Levy  and  Eichhoff,  have  only  about  40 
and  20  respectively  to  hear  them.  The  one  translates  Herniaiin 
und  Dorothea  and  the  other  Byron's  Corsair.'' 

Much  Preaching  blunts  Feeling 

"  I  should  think  that  having  to  write  sermons  would 
very  much  change  the  attitude  of  one's  mind  towards  sacred 
things.  Many  of  one's  thoughts  are  at  least  three  parts  feeling, 
and  would  shrink  from  expression  in  words.  Words  are  a 
clumsy  device  for  indicating  feehngs,  and  they  always  or  almost 
always  give  a  suspicion  of  unreality  and  extravagance  even  to 
the  utterer  himself;  so  I  should  not  like  to  have  to  preach 
some  of  the  thoughts  that  I  find  most  influential.  And  if  I 
did  try,  I  believe  a  few  sentences  would  be  all  I  could  say, 
even  at  the  right  time,  and  sometimes,  often  indeed,  I  could 
say  nothing.  So  one  is  driven  to  the  intellect  for  a  supply  of 
material,  and  then  the  intellect  has  to  work  ad  hoc" 


488  R,  H.  Quick 


LECTURING 

Keep  your  Jokes  till  the  propriety  stage  is  passed 

"22.  4.  80.  I  am  distinctly  not  successful  as  a  lecturer. 
I  fail  to  make  my  audience  sensitive  and  leave  little  impres- 
sion on  their  minds.  Birds,  I  believe,  masticate  the  food 
they  give  their  young.  Mental  food  should  be  thoroughly 
masticated  before  it  is  given  to  an  audience.  A  reader  may 
be  pleased  by  something  which  comes  to  him  as  a  surprise, 
but  you  can't  surprise  an  audience,  for  if  what  you  say  is 
not  expected  it  is  not  understood.  An  audience  can't  make 
the  smallest  mental  effort  of  any  kind.  Even  a  joke  must 
be  a  very  broad  one  or  the  audience  will  miss  it.  If  one 
watches  a  crowd  looking  at  Punch  and  Judy  one  finds  the 
readiest  roar  of  laughter  follows  the  thoroughly  comprehen- 
sible incident  of  Punch  knocking  down  some  one  with  a 
big  stick.  There  is  a  good  laugh  the  first  time,  but  the 
merriment  increases  immensely  if  he  goes  on  knocking  people 
down  and  the  audience  knows  the  blow  is  coming.  In  the 
same  way  an  audience  is  always  delighted  by  some  words 
being  used  over  and  over,  as  they  are  by  so  many  of  the 
characters  in  Dickens,  or  as  '  Any  other  man '  or  '  How's 
your  poor  foot?'  were  used  by  Unwins.  So  little  do  jokes 
lose,  so  much  in  fact  do  they  gain  by  being  familiar,  that 
when  a  piece  has  been  acted  many  times  the  audience  will 
laugh  by  anticipation  when  they  approach  a  joke.  I  observed 
this  especially  in  Paris,  when  '  Frou-frou '  had  had  a  long  run 
at  the  Gymnase. 

"  Now  I  never  get  an  audience  up  to  the  sensitive  stage, 
and  my  best  things  are  consequently  thrown  away.  I  have 
found  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  try  a  joke  near  the  beginning 
of  an  address.     Your  audience  is  like  a  shy  young  partner  who 


In  touch  ivith  audience  489 

has  just  stood  up  to  dance  with  you.  When  I  was  a  youngster 
I  used  to  find  that  there  was  a  propriety  stage  which  had  to  be 
passed  through  at  every  party,  and  that  the  fun  of  the  party 
began  when  this  was  over,  sometimes  before  supper,  but  most 
completely  after  supper.  Now  you  must  go  through  a  pro- 
priety stage  with  your  audience.  Any  attempt  at  a  joke  near 
the  beginning  of  a  lecture  will  seem  as  much  out  of  place  as  at 
a  funeral  and  will  be  received  with  a  *  blank  wall  of  counte- 
nance' like  an  ordinary  platitude.  The  lecturer's  art  is  shown 
in  getting  over  the  propriety  stage  and  becoming  on  famihar 
terms  with  his  audience.  This  is  what  Fitch  does  and  I 
cannot  do.  He  soon  manages  to  make  them  laugh  heartily. 
"  But  can  a  lecturer's  success  be  measured  by  his  power  of 
making  his  audience  laugh?  Yes,  if  he  wants  to  make  them 
laugh.  He  ought  to  feel  that  he  is  carrying  his  audience  with 
him,  and  if  he  tries  a  joke  -and  they  receive  it  as  a  platitude  he 
feels  in  an  instant  that  there  is  no  rapport  between  them 
and  himself.  His  words  he  knows  are  mere  sounds  and  he 
had  better  leave  off  as  soon  as  possible.  There  are  few  things 
more  delightful  on  the  one  hand  than  taking  an  audience  with 
you  and  feeling  thoroughly  en  rapport  with  them,  and  on  the 
other  few  more  dreary  sensations  than  having  to  go  on  with  a 
consciousness  that  the  audience  would  rather  you  stopt." 

Dean  Plumptre  aiid  Archdeacon  A —  /  a  contrast 

"  23.  3.  80.  These  last  Sundays  I  have  been  preaching  to 
children,  but  not  successfully.  Here  I  find  ray  mind  works  pretty 
well.  A  fair  supply  of  things  apparently  worth  saying  suggest 
themselves.  It  is  true  most  of  them  are  not  the  right  kind  of 
thoughts  for  the  young,  but  still  they  are  genuine  thoughts  and 
might  influence  grown  people  at  least.  But  why  is  it  that  one 
lives  without  such  thoughts  if  one  has  not  to  preach?  There 
seems  something  amiss  when  the  preacher  has  to  produce  for 
export  a  kind  of  ware  not  wanted  for  home  consumption.     To 


490  R.  H.  Quick 

be  sure  I  often  get  interested  in  the  thoughts  of  my  own 
sermons,  but  the  interest  is  transient.  In  Ufe  as  in  school- 
keeping  we  Icnow  that  theory  is  an  excellent  thing,  but  in 
practice  we  seem  to  be  able  to  do  without  it,  and  we  do  do 
without  it." 

"22.  10.  81.  Last  week  I  heard  Archdeacon  A.  preach. 
It  was  a  great  treat,  and  it  has  taught  me  something  about 
preaching.  What  is  it  that  makes  one  listen  with  pleasure 
to  a  man?  Given,  i,  something  to  say  worth  saying,  2,  a 
good,  clear  voice  without  any  unpleasant  peculiarity,  3,  a  per- 
fect command  of  good  language  —  surely  with  all  these  a  man 
must  be  easy  to  hsten  to.  But  Plumptre  has  all  these,  and 
Plumptre  is  not  easy  to  listen  to.  What  then  has  Archdeacon 
A.  that  Plumptre  has  not?  I  fancy  it  is  something  in  the 
man's  character.  A.  in  early  days  was  a  charming  com- 
panion, perhaps  the  most  charming  I  ever  knew.  In  this 
respect  he  seems  to  me  now  merely  the  wreck  of  his  former 
self.  He  still  has  something  of  the  old  manner,  but  he  is  far 
too  much  wrapped  up  in  himself  and  his  own  performances  to 
be  a  really  good  companion.  Poor  man  !  he  has  become  a 
Venerable  before  fifty,  and  is  it  to  be  wondered  at?  Still  there 
is  something  of  the  old  charm  of  manner  left,  and  he  has  that 
grand  gift  for  catching  the  ear,  a  pleasant  voice.  Sometimes 
one  feels  inclined  to  say  that  voice  is  everything,  that  it  does 
not  matter  what  the  speaker  has  to  say,  he  will  be  listened  to 
if  he  has  a  pleasing  voice,  and  not  otherwise.  It  is,  I  think, 
true  that  he  must  be  listened  to  if  he  has  a  pleasing  voice,  but 
Sortain  of  Brighton  with  his  unpleasant,  squeaky  voice  made 
people  hsten  to  him.  So  voice  is  not  the  indispensable  con- 
dition. Perhaps  there  is  no  one  indispensable  condition,  but 
there  may  be  several  things  any  one  of  which  secures  success. 
A.  has  no  doubt  a  great  advantage  over  P.  in  his  voice,  which 
is  much  more  pleasing,  but  he  has  a  greater  still  in  his  power 
of  conveying  to  his  hearers  that  his  sermon  is  a  part  of  himself. 
P.  gives  you   the   notion   that   he   is   a  well-read  man  and  a 


Pei^soual  chann  491 

thoughtful  nian,  but  his  learning  and  his  thoughts  seem  rather 
apparatus  for  preaching  than  the  man  himself.  A.  speaks  the 
language  of  feeling,  and  this,  when  genuine,  seems  to  show  you 
the  man  himself,  for  feeling  unless  histrionic  must  be  the  man 
himself,  thought  only  may  be.  Here  are  two  things,  voice  and 
feeling,  which  A.  has,  and  P.  has  not,  and  I  fancy  either  would 
give  success.  Some  other  things  both  have,  which  are  excellent 
in  their  way,  but  will  not  do  alone,  and  may  be  dispensed  with 
when  the  indispensable  are  found  —  e.g.  good  flowing  English. 
The  ear  is  pleased  by  a  flow  of  language.  When  the  expression 
is  jerky  or  bald,  the  effect  on  the  hearers  is  discomfort,  and 
I  don't  suppose  people  often  get  good  from  unpleasant  sermons. 
All  teaching  should  be,  as  Sacchini  says,  ex  pleno,  and  if  there  is 
no  flow,  people  naturally  suspect  that  the  source  is  nearly  dried 
up.  To  be  sure  this  defect  was  noticeable  to  some  extent  in 
Cobden,  who  was,  nevertheless,  a  powerful  speaker,  but  with 
Cobden  you  felt  that  if  there  was  any  deficiency  it  was  of  words 
only.  Another  advantage  A.  and  P.  have  in  common  is  entire 
freedom  from  the  book.  It  is  a  great  advantage  to  be  able  to 
look  at  the  hearers,  but  Melvill,  who  used  to  rivet  everyone's 
attention  so  that  nobody  coughed  till  the  end  of  the  sentence, 
never  raised  his  eyes  from  his  book." 

Platitudes 

"  In  his  sermon  this  morning  L.  said,  '  It  is  an  awful  thing 
to  trifle  with  God  '  and  sentence  after  sentence  of  the  same 
kind.  Such  platitude  is  supposed  to  be  the  regular  thing  in 
the  pulpit,  and  probably  I  am  the  only  person  in  the  congre- 
gation who  remembers  that  he  said  it,  and  I  only  remember  it 
as  a  typical  instance  of  unmeaning  sermon  talk.  L.  would  no 
more  think  of  using  such  language  out  of  the  pulpit  than  he 

would  of  going  to  a  dinner-party  in  his  surplice Some  of  us 

say  things  that  come  from  our  hearts,  but  we  have  only  a  small 
supply  of  them,  and  we  are  driven  into  platitudes  for  padding, 


492  ./?.  //.   Quick 

and  by  degrees  we  find  the  })latitudes  so  much  easier  that  we 
use  them  exchisively.  'Phis  is  fatal.  It  gets  to  be  understood 
on  all  hands  that  the  j^reacher  is  firing  blank  cartridges  and  no 
one  minds  him." 


Preaching  at  Guildford  Workhouse 

"  2.  7.  82.  One  doubts  one's  sincerity  in  making  such 
statements,  but  I  think  I  may  say  /o  jujse// that  I  would  sooner 
preach  successfiilly  in  the  workhouse  than  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Chapel ;  but  the  conditions  of  success  are  not  lighter  perhaps 
in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  When  I  was  a  boy,  I  used 
to  feel  that  pre.ichers  were  mostly  outside  the  world  of  fact,  and 
I  used  to  devise  some  very  straightforward  mode  of  address  for 
bringing  people  to  a  consciousness  that  the  talk  meant  some- 
thing. Now  I  am  old  I  see  the  difficulty  as  plainly  as  ever, 
but  I  no  longer  see  or  think  I  see  the  means  of  overcoming  it. 
Pvven  anecdotes  get  a  sermony  hue  and  become  as  little 
observable  and  as  little  observed  as  the  Arctic  fox  in  the  snow. 
In  school  teaching  I  am  careful  never  to  go  on  saying  anything 
if  I  think  I  have  lost  the  boys'  attention.  But  one  can't  leave 
off  in  a  sermon  if  the  thoughts  of  the  congregation  seem 
wandering.  And  the  instant  one  gets  accustomed  to  address 
people  not  listening,  it's  all  up  with  the  preaching.  No  preach- 
ing is  successful  unless  the  congregation  as  a  body  listen  to  it. 
Now  I  have  not,  as  yet,  got  the  power  of  gaining  attention.  I 
say  what  is  worth  listening  to,  but  I  can't  get  the  manner  that 
makes  people  listen.  What  is  it  that  is  wanting?  I  know 
beforehand  pretty  well  what  I  am  going  to  say,  words  come 
without  difficulty,  and  yet  I  don't  seem  to  be  in  the  same 
medium  as  the  people  I  am  addressing.  I  look  at  them  as  I 
look  at  the  fish  in  the  Brighton  Aquarium.  They,  like  the 
fish,  seem  at  times  staring  at  me,  but  we  both  feel  that  we 
cannot  affect  one  another." 


The  art  of  speaking  493 


Effects  of  Preaching  on  the  Preacher 

"  The  great  danger  of  preaching  seems  to  me  that  one  so 
soon  loses  touch  of  one's  own  life.  One  says  what  seems  to 
one  good  and  true,  but  it  is  sermon  matter,  thought  out  ad  hoc, 
not  truth  one  has  been  living  by.  On  the  other  hand  from 
having  to  preach  one  may  think  out  truth  that  one  afterwards 
lives  by." 

Phillips  Brooks 

"21.  II.  83.  I  still  have  great  difficulty  to  find  time 
for  sermons.  Most  life-thought  seems  to  me  inarticulate.  I 
find  it  hard  to  get  expressible  thoughts  that  shall  have  some 
connection  with  my  life.  If  one  puts  on  (so  to  speak)  the 
thoughts  of  good  writers  one  feels  like  David  in  Saul's  armour 
and  lays  them  aside  again  because  one  has  not  proved 
them.  But  I  must  manage  to  get  expressible  truth  from 
somewhere  and  I  have  just  been  reading  '  The  Greatness  of 
Faith,'  one  of  Phillips  Brooks's  Sermons  preached  in  English 
Churches. 

"  Brooks  preaches  sermons  like  my  own  idealised.  Nobody 
might  find  this  out  unless  I  told  him,  but  there  is  some  truth 
in  it." 

The  Art  of  Speaking 

"  22.  5.  84.  The  other  night  I  was  at  the  F.D.M. (Maurice) 
Society,  where  I  found  a  roomful  of  Mauricians  of  about  my 
standing.  What  struck  me  most  was  the  extreme  badness  of 
the  speaking.  I  think  if  the  ordinary  man  had  something  to 
say  and  just  got  up  and  said  it,  we  should  have  very  tidy 
speaking.  But  most  people  seem  to  draw  a  distinction  between 
making  a  speech  and  saying  something.  They  have  no  definite 
thing  that  they  want  to  say  and  then  sit  down,  but  they  seem 


494  J^-  H.   Quick 

fumbling  in  their  minds  first  for  materials  and  then  for  expres- 
sion. They  don't  find  either  in  very  good  form  and  they  go  on 
and  on  in  the  ho])e  of  hitting  on  something  better  presently. 
I'hey  are  like  the  man  in  the  Dunciad  who 

'  Groped  for  his  sense  and  found  no  meaning  there, 
Then  floundered  on  and  on  in  sheer  despair.' 

But  if  people  want  to  make  speeches  they  should  study  the  art. 
I'm  not  sure  it  is  a  good  art.  Better  not  make  a  speech  but  say 
what  you  have  to  say  and  then  leave  off.  But  the  artist,  a  man 
like  Gladstone  or  Montagu  Butler,  is  certainly  an  entertainer 
and  I  would  as  soon  hear  him  as  a  musician  ;  but  in  either 
case  it  is  an  art  and  must  be  learnt. 

"There  are  in  my  judgment  two  kinds  of  speaking.  The 
first  is  mere  talking  to  more  than  one  person.  You  know 
something  which  you  want  to  say  to  them  ;  you  think  only  of 
that  something ;  you  say  it,  and  there's  an  end.  The  other 
kind  is  when  the  speech  is  a  sort  of  performance  and  whatever 
the  matter  may  be  the  speaker  shows  skill  in  his  handling  of  it, 
in  his  command  of  words,  and  grace  of  voice  and  manner. 
The  first  kind  ought  to  be  possible  to  anyone,  but  in  practice 
it  is  not.  We  seldom  have  anything  very  clear  and  sharply 
limited  to  say,  and  if  we  have  we  seldom  have  the  sense  to 
stick  to  it,  say  it,  and  then  leave  off.  Most  people  when  on 
their  legs  feel  bound  to  '  make  a  speech.'  So  the  first  kind  of 
speaking  is  rare  indeed.  On  Sunday  last  I  heard  two  artists  in 
speech,  the  Bishop  of  Rochester  and  Spurgeon.  The  Bishop 
gave  a  capital  address  to  children  and  never  lost  touch  of  his 
audience.  Spurgeon  did  not  take  me  with  him  or  even  interest 
me  at  all.  But  one  thing  I  observed  both  speakers  did.  They 
took  a  large  tract  of  country,  so  to  speak,  for  their  walk,  and  if 
a  thing  seemed  to  suit  they  dilated  on  it ;  if  not  they  passed  on. 
In  this  way  they  made  sure  of  fluency  ;  but  in  the  result,  though 
the  Bishop  at  least  left  many  detached  thoughts  in  the  mind, 
jiieither  speaker  produced  any  total  impression." 


Maurice  s  Sermons  495 


F.  D.  Matmce's  Sermons 

"  16.  10.  87.  I  have  been  reading  the  Lincoln's  Inn 
Sermons,  vol.  vi.  Maurice  alternately  attracts  and  repels  me. 
He  seems  to  me  to  have  what  so  few  Christian  teachers  have, 
a  constant  sense  that  God  is  in  very  deed  a  spirit  speaking 
to  our  spirits.  But  then  he  seems  to  be  always  squeezing 
meanings  into  forms  of  statement  or  narrative  that  we  cannot 
suppose  to  have  been  intended  for  them.  Thus  in  the  Samuel 
narrative  (i  Samuel  iii.  9)  Maurice  is  fierce  against  those  who 
think  the  husk  must  be  thrown  away.  The  narrative  must  be 
taken  just  as  it  is.  But  Maurice  evidently  struggles  against 
any  sense  impressions  in  revelations  to  Abraham  or  Samuel. 
They  may  have  existed,  he  says,  but  merely  as  accompani- 
ments. He  obviously  would  like  to  get  rid  of  them  altogether, 
and  yet  he  does  not  do  so.  He  seems  to  me  to  ignore  the 
husk  while  protesting  (and  who  could  for  an  instant  doubt  his 
sincerity?)  that  he  is  not  ignoring  it." 


Expression  affects  thought 

"  24.  12.  84.  I  was  to-day  thinking  of  the  effect  which  the 
necessity  of  expressing  our  thoughts  must  have  on  the  thoughts 
themselves.  Most  people  are  not  obliged  to  express  their 
thoughts  and  they  either  never  think  connectedly  or  they  think 
vaguely  and  are  content  with  half  thoughts. 

"  We  know  what  a  difference  it  makes  to  our  observation  of 
anything  whether  we  look  at  it  simply  for  our  own  pleasure  or 
with  the  intention  of  describing  it.  The  eye  of  the  artist  sees 
far  more  than  that  of  the  ordinary  spectator.  In  my  early 
travelling  days  I  used  to  write  accounts  of  what  I  saw.  The 
consequence  was  that  I  was  on  the  look-out  for  what  might 
be  described.  This  changed  my  attitude  of  mind  from  the 
passiveness  which  simply  takes  in  impressions  as  they  come. 


496  R.  //.  Quick 

And  I  found  that  what  I  afterwards  described  stood  out  so 
prominently  in  my  memory  that  all  else  fell  into  the  shade. 

"  Having  to  write  sermons  cannot  fail  to  influence  religious 
thought.  Most  people  neglect  the  highest  problems  and  lessons 
of  religion.  Those  who  write  sermons  must  speak  of  them. 
But  the  truth  they  live  by  hardly  affords  them  enough  material. 
They  must  then  go  beyond  it,  they  must  say  what  they  think 
true  but  do  not  work  into  their  own  lives  or  what  has  no  root 
in  their  minds  at  all.  In  the  little  sermon  writing  I  have  done, 
I  have  had  to  explore  for  sermon  purposes  or  have  found  truth 
which  has  seemed  to  me  valuable,  but  I  have  failed  to  work  it 
into  my  own  life,  so  that  had  I  gone  on  preaching  it  there 
would  soon  have  been  a  consciousness  of  unreality  about  what 
I  preached  to  others." 

Truth  and  feeling 

"30.  II.  85.  I  yesterday  intended  to  preach  a  sermon  I 
had  written  during  the  previous  week.  By  mistake  I  took  an 
old  sermon  and  had  to  preach  it.  This  old  sermon  I  had 
already  preached  extempore  in  the  afternoon.  The  old  sermon 
was  far  the  better  of  the  two,  indeed  it  contained  thought  that 
is,  I  hold,  most  precious.  But  though  I  approve  of  the  old 
sermon  intellectually,  I  could  not  feel  it  even  as  I  feel  the 
commonplace  of  the  new  sermon.     Coleridge's  words  — 

"  '  I  see,  noi  feel,  how  beautiful  they  are,' 

applies  to  things  true  no  less  than  to  things  beautiful.  Now  it 
is  the  union  of  feeling  with  thought  that  gives  thought  its  force. 
The  scientific  people  say,  as  Renan  has  put  it,  '  Now  abideth 
goodness,  beauty,  truth,  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  truth.' 
But  there  is  truth  and  truth,  and  if  we  think  of  truth  as  the 
scientific  folk  do,  as  accurate  thought  about  the  material  world, 
we  have  little  of  what  seems  to  me  vital  truth,  viz.  truth 
penetrated,  permeated,  informed  by  feeUng.     Even  intellectual 


Living  truth  497 

truth  looks  different  at  different  times.  When  the  philosopher 
who  hit  on  the  truth  about  the  square  on  the  hypotenuse  of  a 
right-angled  triangle,  thought  of  the  proposition  after  it  was 
old,  it  seemed  much  less  interesting  than  it  did  at  first.  But 
personal  truth  can  be  more  than  merely  interesting,  it  can  be 
living.  Even  the  philosophers  are  not  mere  intellect,  and 
when  they  have  settled  as  much  as  ever  can  be  settled  about 
the  laws  of  matter,  there  will  still  be  whole  realms  of  other 
kinds  of  truth  which  these  laws  will  not  explain.  Herbert 
Spencer  says  that  poetic  expression  should  be  studied  scien- 
tifically and  its  laws  ascertained,  but  it  is  obvious  that  no 
future  Milton  or  Tennyson  will  write  poetry  by  application  of 
these  laws.  We  might  as  well  think  of  future  Mozarts  and 
Schuberts  composing  melodies  by  laws  of  sequence  of  sound." 

2K 


498  R.  H.   Quick 


RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS 
XVIII 

After  reading  Ward's  Ideal  of  a   Christian   Church 

"  How  far  the  Roman  Church  leads  to  Christ,  how  far  it 
obscures  Him,  1  have  neither  the  power  nor  the  means  for 
determining.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  not  required,  at  least 
at  the  present  time,  to  trouble  myself  with  such  questions. 
Ward's  book  would  lead  me  to  this  course.  He  contends  for 
the  supremacy  of  conscience  in  determining  our  religion,  both 
in  faith  and  practice.  By  conscience  he  does  not  mean  Butler's 
conscience,  but  rather  the  higher  instincts  of  our  nature.  Now 
my  moral  instincts  do  not  lead  towards  Rome,  rather  the 
reverse.  When  studying  any  Roman  Catholic  work  I  never 
seem  to  be  breathing  a  healthy  spiritual  atmosphere.  This 
however  is  likely  enough  to  be  the  effect  of  early  prejudices." 

Pessimism  is  practical  atheism 

"17.  6.  82.  Directly  things  don't  go  the  way  one  thinks 
they  ought  to  go  one  jumps  to  the  conclusion,  '  L'univers  est 
un  sot  pays.'  Just  now  I  am  in  a  state  of  disgust  at  my  own 
affairs,  and  (perhaps  as  a  consequence)  at  public  affairs,  and 
one  begins  to  rail  at  all  the  firstborn  of  Egypt.  But  this  is 
practical  atheism.  It  is  in  fact  doubting  whether  reason  has 
the  upper  hand  in  the  conduct  of  human  affairs,  on  no  better 
grounds  than  personal  observation  of  a  very  few  facts,  and 
those  very  paltry  facts  too. 


Coufessio  Fidel  499 

"  I  give  myself  for  over  twenty  years  to  the  study  of  the  art 
of  teaching,  and  then  I  think  I  will  keep  a  model  school  and 
show  what  can  be  done.  I  know  full  well  that  most  preparatory 
schools  are  bad  and  that  mine  is  by  comparison  good,  yet  while 
all  sorts  of  impostors  get  boys  sent  them,  I  can  get  not  enough 
to  pay  for  house  and  servants.   .  .  . 

"  So  I  conclude  that  stupidity  reigns.  But  after  all  I  may 
not  be  so  decidedly  superior  in  intelligence  to  the  Supreme 
Director  of  all  things  as  in  effect  I  assume  that  I  am.  There 
are  no  doubt  many  proofs  of  the  power  of  stupidity,  proofs 
more  remarkable  than  those  that  have  produced  such  an  effect 
on  my  own  mind  ;  but  after  all  they  do  not  amount  to  a  justi- 
fication of  atheism,  and  if  the  will  of  God  does  affect  human 
affairs,  reason  must  in  the  long  run  be  more  powerful  than  un- 
reason, and  so  long  as  we  are  striving  to  get  reason  to  prevail, 
we  are  on  the  winning  side,  whatever  appearances  may  say." 

Coufessio  Fidei 

"  Which  is  the  more  ridiculous,  the  Catholic  who  thinks 
that  divine  justice  will  torture  a  man  for  not  receiving  certain 
dogmas,  or  the  Protestant  who  insists  on  the  duty  of  private 
judgment?  Of  course  the  Catholic  may  say  that  if  a  man  has 
any  doubts  about  the  double  procession  or  about  Transub- 
stantiation  he  is  not  in  a  right  frame  of  mind  —  in  fact  that  the 
only  frame  of  mind  which  is  consistent  with  salvation  is  the 
'  mouth  open  and  the  eyes  shut '  condition  ;  but  we  can  hardly 
suppose  that  men  were  made  with  the  faculty  of  thinking 
merely  in  order  that  they  might  decline  to  use  it.  On  the 
other  hand  the  Protestant's  '  private  judgment '  is  a  mere 
phantom  of  his  imagination.  If  you  could  project  a  body  into 
space  with  a  certain  velocity  and  tell  a  mathematician  all  the 
forces  that  are  acting  and  will  act  on  it  he  would  determine  its 
position  at  any  time  you  chose.  The  position  of  any  ordinary 
mind  might  be  determined  with  equal  exactness  if  we  knew 


500  R.  H.  Quick 

the  external  influetices  which  had  acted  on  it.  And  so  I  am 
in  middle  age  and  fast  approaching  the  stage  at  which  a  man's 
mind  crystallises  and  has  no  further  change,  and  I  find  myself 
not  a  Catholic  and  a  very  questionable  sort  of  Protestant.  All 
I  can  say  is  that  as  far  as  I  can  see  there  is  only  one  name 
given  whereby  we  can  be  saved.  The  meaning  I  attach  to 
these  words  however  is  not  exactly  that  which  they  bear  at 
Exeter  Hall.  Thus  I  am  thoroughly  detached  (more  so  I  fear 
than  I  ought  to  be)  both  socially  and  intellectually.  My  mind 
is  chiefly  influenced  by  two  considerations,  ist  the  mixture  of 
good  and  evil  in  all  things  and  persons,  2nd  the  insignificance 
of  cares  and  pleasures  which  must  so  soon  come  to  an  end. 
These  thoughts  influence  me  always.  In  my  better  moments 
I  trust  that  as  we  may  trace  on  a  card  a  curve  which  obeys  the 
same  laws  as  the  paths  of  the  planets,  so  in  our  little  life  we 
may  conform  ourselves  to  the  will  of  a  righteous  and  loving 
Father.  The  great  difficulty  of  all  others  to  my  mind  is  this  : 
Christianity  seems  to  say  to  all  men,  '  Seek  first  the  kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness,'  unless  you  do  this  there  is  no 
goodness  possible  for  you.  As  a  fact  the  immense  majority 
of  people  do  not  comply  with  this  condition,  and  yet  are  not 
any  worse  than  the  religious.  Religious  faith  instead  of  being 
the  only  source  of  goodness  seems  only  one  of  many.  The 
Saturday  Review  calmly  acquiesces  in  this  and  says  we  want 
saints  as  we  want  painters,  but  it  would  never  do  for  all  people 
to  turn  painters  or  to  act  chiefly  on  religious  beliefs.  But  the 
truth  which  the  painter  devotes  himself  to  is  not  the  one  thing 
needful  for  men;  the  truth  which  the  saint  devotes  himself  to, 
if  truth  at  all,  is  the  one  thing  needful." 


Roman   CatJiolic  v.  Evangelical  501 


Modetm   Christianity 

"When  I  compare  our  Christianity  with  the  ApostoHc,  the 
main  difference  seems  to  me  to  be  that  we  are  without  hope. 
Faith  and  Charity  we  have,  or  perhaps,  more  strictly  speaking, 
behef  and  benevolence,  but  hope  has  vanished  and  has  not  left 
any  deputy.  The  early  Christian  felt  that  he  belonged  to  an 
army  that  must  go  on  conquering  and  that  he  would  share  its 
conquests.  Now  Christianity  no  longer  seems  a  conquering 
power  in  this  world,  and  the  thought  of  the  next  world  causes 
more  fear  than  hope.  If  the  choice  were  offered  I  have  no 
doubt  the  majority  of  Christians  would  now  compound  for 
annihilation." 

Nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw 

"Some  time  ago  at  Guildford  I  was  much  disturbed  at 
finding  a  bird  on  the  garden  path  in  convulsions.  All  sorts  of 
questions  about  Nature  and  Providence  rushed  into  my  mind, 
but  on  further  reflection  I  thought,  '  How  foolish  to  be  thus 
disturbed  by  the  sufferings  of  a  single  bird  when  the  delight  of 
hundreds  of  birds  flying  about  in  this  garden  and  singing  from 
day  to  day  has  never  once  raised  my  mind  to  Him  who  has 
given  them  this  happiness  1" 

Nullius  addictus 

"26.  8.  88,  A  Roman  Catholic  considers  himself  bound 
to  receive  what  is  given  him.  An  Evangelical  after  talking 
about  the  right  of  private  judgment  calmly  '  sits  under '  some 
'  converted  '  preacher.  But  what  are  we  to  do  who  are  neither 
Roman  Catholics  nor  Evangelicals?  Heaven  knows  I  have 
no  confidence  in  my  own  judgment  or  insight,  and  I  would 


502  R.  11.  Quick 

gladly  'sit  under'  one  of  the  many  men  whose  judgment  and 
insight  are  far  superior  to  my  own.  liut  under  which  is  it  to 
be?  I  have  a  high  respect  for  Cardinal  Newman,  both  his 
intellectual  power  and  his  spiritual  insight,  but  to  join  the 
Church  of  Rome  with  my  present  Ansicht  would  be  an  im- 
possibility. Shall  I  look  for  guidance  to  an  Evangelical  like 
Vaughan  of  Brighton,  who  in  some  ways  commands  my  highest 
respect?  The  scientific  spirit  of  the  age  (little  as  I  know  about 
science)  has  so  affected  me  that  I  can  no  longer  accept  the 
Mosaic  creation,  the  Flood,  etc.,  as  a  child  does." 

Death  and  personal  Identity 

"8.  12.  88.  Oneof  the  greatest  puzzles  of  life  to  my  mind  is 
the  lack  of  proportion  between  the  importance  of  things  and  the 
way  they  affect  us.  The  Trappists  when  they  may  say  nothing 
else  may  say,  '  II  faut  mourir.'  The  consequence  of  this 
constant  repetition  must  be  that  the  words  must  lose  their 
meaning  and  no  more  bring  up  the  thought  of  death  than 
'  Good-bye '  brings  up  to  us  the  thought  of  God.  And  even 
the  thought  of  death  itself  does  not  increase  in  effect  as  we 
reflect  more  and  more  on  its  importance.  Is  there  anything 
eternal?  Have  we,  can  we  have,  any  share  in  it?  There  is 
nothing  of  any  real  importance  except  the  answer  to  these 
questions  or,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned,  the  answer  to  the  last 
of  them.  For  if  in  a  few  years  there  will  be  nothing  left  of  me 
in  the  sum  of  things  except  an  '  unpleasant  body,'  whether  the 
laws  of  matter,  whether  matter  itself  is  eternaT  is  to  me  not  of 
the  slightest  consequence.  Lately  I  have  felt  perplexed  by 
the  constant  flux  of  things.  The  question  of  identity  which 
Bishop  Butler  thinks  so  simple  does  not  seem  at  all  simple  to 
me.  My  dear  little  girl  is  now  nearly  six.  What  wonderful 
changes  she  has  already  passed  through  !  Charles  Lamb  says 
he  can  think  of  his  boy  self  and  be  proud  of  it  without  any 
feeling   of  self-satisfaction    or   conceit.     I   can  look  back  to 


Personal  ideiitity  503 

several  Doras,  each  very  lovely  and  very  dear.  The  present 
is  a  very  dear  good  little  girl,  but  the  heavenly  beauty  which 
she  had  when  about  two  years  old  is  as  much  a  thing  of  the 
past  as  the  morning's  sunrise.  So  in  the  course  of  nature  we 
come  to  perfection  and  in  some  respects  very  early,  and  we 
lose  that  perfection  just  as  a  flower  is  soon  overblown. 
Other  things  advance,  some  we  would  fain  hope  till  there  is 
here  no  further  change.  But  in  what  consists  the  identity  of 
the  child  of  two  and  the  decrepit  old  man  or  woman  of  80  years 
afterwards?  We  believe  nevertheless  that  there  is  an  Eternal 
and  we  hope  that  He  is  drawing  us  to  Himself.  But  the  thought 
is  obscured  in  our  minds  by  all  sorts  of  trumpery,  'it  moves  us 
not.'  It  does  not  naturally  come  up  in  my  mind  as  something 
of  to-day  does  —  some  letters  I  have  written  to  the  local  paper 
about  drains,  or  to  the  Spectator  on  the  iniquities  of  the 
Code." 

The  future  life 

"28.  4.  81.  Renan  has  been  lecturing  in  London.  In 
one  of  his  lectures  on  Marcus  Aurelius  there  was  a  remarkable 
passage  in  which  he  argued  that  when  M.  Aurelius  acquiesces 
in  the  thought  of  annihilation  he  was  going  too  far.  If  there  is 
nothing  for  us  beyond  this  life,  said  Renan,  we  must  curse  the 
Gods.  The  Controlling  Mind  in  that  case  can  have  no  pre- 
ference for  virtue,  nay,  it  may  prefer  vice.  I  cannot  go  with 
Renan  here.  What  is  it  that  gives  us  our  belief  in  the  superior- 
ity of  virtue?  Surely  it  is  the  constitution  of  things  in  which  we 
find  ourselves,  and  from  that  constitution  we  may  learn  the 
preference  of  the  Controlling  Mind.  And  as  far  as  I  can  judge, 
vice  is  utterly  stupid  and  virtue  unutterably  wise  whether  there 
is  a  hereafter  or  not.  But  in  one  respect,  if  there  is  no  here- 
after the  Controlling  Mind  would  differ  very  widely  from  what 
we  assume  to  be  its  copy,  the  mind  of  men.  We  all  want  to 
improve.    It  is  not  excellence  that  delights  us  but  improvement. 


504  ^.  //•    Quick 

Now  if  we  put  a  future  life  out  of  account  the  course  of  things 
does  not  show  any  trace  of  this  love  of  improvement.  One 
of  the  most  striking  passages  I  know  in  classical  literature  is 
that  in  the  De  Seneciiite  when  Cicero  finding  himself  driven  into 
a  corner  by  the  ever  increasing  infirmities  of  the  aged  says,  *  It 
is  not  likely  that  Nature  is  as  it  were  a  bungling  poet  and  winds 
up  with  a  Fifth  Act  manque.'  But  if  old  age  is  indeed  the  last 
act,  this  is  just  what  she  does,  and  we  must  rank  her  as  an 
iners  poeta.  For  my  part  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  some  of 
our  faculties  (at  least  the  imagination)  come  to  their  perfection 
in  childhood.  I  can  remember  when  I  could  delight  myself 
or  terrify  myself  with  mental  pictures.  Now  I  can't  form  such 
pictures  at  all,  and  the  most  skilful  authors  fail  to  do  so  for  me. 
Matthew  Arnold  thinks  that  Wordsworth  exaggerates  about  the 
superiority  of  childhood  and  what  he  remembers  of  it  as  having 
'  the  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream,'  but  I  doubt  if  he 
does.  One  looks  at  the  sea  and  remembers  the  thrill  of  delight 
the  sight  gave  one  as  a  boy ;  or  one  hears  the  hiss  of  pebbles 
as  they  are  drawn  back  with  the  wave  and  one  remembers  the 
weird  feelings  the  sound  used  to  awaken  in  one.  St.  Paul 
speaks  as  if  the  manly  way  of  looking  at  things  was  in  every 
respect  above  the  child's  way,  but  to  me  it  does  not  seem  so. 
Thus  the  middle-aged  man  loses  the  physical  activity  of  the 
young  man  and  also  the  receptivity  of  mind.  The  old  man 
seems  to  lose  in  every  way.  Cicero  tries  to  make  out  that 
there  is  an  excellence  proper  to  old  age,  and  certainly  the 
purely  critical  and  deliberative  faculty  of  the  mind  does  go  on 
improving  after  everything  else  has  waned,  but  even  this  power 
is  lost  in  extreme  old  age.  So  Nature  fails  to  satisfy  the  desire 
of  the  mind  that  there  shall  be  a  good  end.  Either  then  the 
controlling  mind  has  something  in  store  for  us  or  we  learn 
nothing  of  that  mind  from  the  mind  of  men." 


A  Harrow  Boys  Essay  505 


VARIA 

Jules  Simon 

"  In  a  speech  at  a  prize-giving,  Jules  Simon  repeats  his  two 
favourite  maxims,  which  are  worth  remembering.  The  first 
he  gave  in  LEcole,  some  twenty  years  ago  ;  '  Le  peuple  qui 
a  les  meilleures  ^coles  est  le  premier  peuple ;  s'il  ne  Test  pas 
aujourd'hui  il  le  sera  demain.'  His  second  maxim  is  this  : 
'  II  faut  donner  a  I'instruction  primaire  tous  les  milUons  dont 
11  a  besoin  et  ne  pas  les  regretter.'  Six  years  after  enouncing 
this  maxim  he  became  Minister  of  Instruction,  and,  like  other 
people,  found  he  could  not  carry  out  his  own  principle.  He 
added  four  millions  to  the  budget,  and  Thiers  refused  to  give 
them.  Thereupon  Simon  sent  in  his  resignation,  and  Thiers 
finally  compromised,  allowing  him  half  the  sum.  This  was 
in  1872  for  the  budget  of  1873." 

A  Harrow  Boy's  Essay 

{Cojnpare  Spartan  and  English  Education) 

" '  The  education  of  a  Spartan  and  of  an  English  boy  were 
very  much  the  same.  They  both  undergo  a  great  many  hard- 
ships. One  difference  is  that  deformed  babies  in  Sparta  were 
killed  on  a  mountain  by  their  mothers,  and  deformed  English 
babies  are  generally  killed  by  doctors  and  surgeons.  Then 
they  both  go  to  schools,  but  the  one  was  flogged  on  an  altar 
till  the  blood  came,  the  other  is  stripped  on  the  block  in 
Fourth  Form  room.  The  Spartan  boy  was  given  a  small 
quantity  of  good  food,  the  English  boy  a  small  quantity  of 
bad.  One  had  to  hunt  for  it  on  the  mountains,  and  the 
other  in  Fuller's  [the  Harrow  tuck  shop].  One  cost  labour, 
the  other  money.  The  Spartan  was  encouraged  to  steal,  but 
was   punished  if  found  out;  the  English   boy  is  discouraged 


5o6  R.  II.  Quick 

from  stealing  and  punished  if  not  found  out  [a  topical  allu- 
sion] .  The  Spartans  were  allowed  to  buy  very  little,  and  had 
very  little  money,  English  boys  are  restricted  in  the  same 
way  soon  after  the  beginning  of  term.  But  the  Spartans 
used  bars  of  iron,  while  the  English  use  gold  and  silver, 
and,  later  on,  copper.  The  Spartan  mothers  used  to  tell 
their  sons  to  come  back  with  the  shield  or  on  it,  while  the 
English  mothers  tell  their  sons  to  come  back  with  a  copy  [a 
prize]  or  without  oue.  On  the  whole  a  Spartan  boy  was 
rather  the  best  off,  because  in  their  history  there  is  no  men- 
tion of  Greek  verb  card  punishments,  reps.,  compulsory  foot- 
ball, going  to  bathe  only  once  a  day,  bills  [roll-call],  cricket 
fagging,  several  other  things,  and  extra  school.' " 

Memo7'y  of  words  without  ideas 

"  Miss  Yonge,  in  her  Landmarks,  tells  about  the  Spartan 
children  being  whipped,  and  also  gives  the  story  of  the  mother 
and  the  shield.  These  stories  were  blended  thus  by  a  Hurst 
boy :  *  The  Spartans  were  a  brave  and  hardy  people.  The 
boys  were  whipped  naked  before  the  temple  of  Artemis.  Their 
mother  stood  by  and  cried,  "  With  it  or  upon  it."  '  What  the 
mother  meant  by  '  With  it  or  upon  it '  the  boy  never  troubled 
himself  to  think;  so,  the  phrase  conveying  no  idea  to  his 
mind,  came  in  as  appropriately  in  one  story  as  in  the  other. 
Here  is  another  instance  of  the  words  learnt  being  mere 
sounds  to  the  learner.  In  another  of  Miss  Yonge's  books  is 
an  account  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  After 
describing  the  constitution  of  one  of  the  Assemblies,  she 
adds,  '  Each  State  has  a  similar  machinery.'  I  asked  a  boy, 
'How  is  America  governed?'  The  boy  has  prepared  his 
lesson,  so  rummages  in  his  memory  for  the  right  word.  *  I 
'  know,  Sir,'  he  cries  to  prevent  the  question  passing,  and 
then  the  word  dawns  upon  him  and  he  bursts  out,  '  By 
machinery,  Sir.' " 


Varia  507 


Learning  and  knowing 

"  There  is  a  story  of  a  child  expressing  surprise  at  finding 
out  something  from  experience  which  had  long  been  taken  in 
as  a  lesson  only.  When  asked  whether  he  had  not  learnt  that 
in  such  and  such  a  book,  he  said,  '  I  learnt  it,  but  I  did  not 
know  it.' " 

A  stupid  boy 

"  Richardson  of  Marlborough  coached  a  stupid  boy  for  an 
examination  in  French.  The  boy  would  not  for  a  long  time 
use  etre  with  verbs  of  motion,  so  Richardson  kept  him  at  '  he 
had  set  out,'  &c.,  till  he  got  it  into  his  head  at  last.  After 
the  examination  he  said  he  had  not  done  very  well  in  the 
paper,  but  one  thing  he  had  got  right.  The  question  was 
about  '  set  out.'  Richardson  looked  at  the  paper  and  found, 
'  He  had  set  out  the  table,'  Jl etait parti  la  tabic.'" 

How  to  lengthen  life 

{A  lecture  on  Psychology  at  the  Home  and  Colonial) 

"  By  the  way,  people  who  want  to  lengthen  their  lives 
should  take  every  opportunity  of  being  bored.  Tedium  mul- 
tipHes  every  minute  by  three  at  least.  Here  is  one  end 
served  by  sermons,  which  has  never,  as  far  as  I  know,  been 
mentioned." 

Grammar  does  not  insure  correct  use  of  language 

"  R.  M.  is  one  of  the  first  authorities  we  have  in  English 
grammar.  He  was  lately  examining  viva  voce,  when  one  of 
the  class  made  a  statement  that  did  not  please  M.  '  Where 
did  you  get  that  from  ? '  asked  M.     '  Morell,'  said  the  boy. 


5o8  R.  H.  Quick 

'  Morell  !   he  don't  know  nothing  about  it.'     So  accuracy  in 
the  use  of  language  must  come  by  imitation,  not  by  rule. 

"  The  English  are  very  keen  on  the  fact  that  theory  does 
not,  in  many  cases,  guide  practice  as  well  as  use  and  wont. 
But  it  {/oes  guide  it  and  often  correct  it,  which  use  and  wont 
cannot  do.  Some  changes  may  have  come  in  our  language, 
as  they  certainly  have  done  in  spelling,  from  theoretical  con- 
siderations. At  all  events,  there  is  no  danger  of  our  over- 
doing theory  at  present.  I  should  very  much  like  to  see  if 
theory  would  do  anything  for  us  in  generalising  on  mental 
phenomena." 

Dr  Haiina 

"  Dr  Hanna,  the  Rector  of  the  Edinburgh  Academy,  seems 
to  have  been  a  very  able  man  who  had  great  influence  with 
the  boys.  He  was  sometimes  deceived,  however.  He  allowed 
hearing  by  heart  to  be  done  by  top  boys  in  his  presence, 
while  he  corrected  exercises.  By  means  of  holding  the  book 
upside  down  the  hearer  managed  to  let  the  sayer  read  instead 
of  repeating,  which  saved  much  trouble.  Hanna  never  found 
it  out  till  one  day,  a  dispute  arising  between  two  boys,  he 
snatched  the  book  and  found  that  the  boy  who  had  been  going 
on  with  great  fluency  didn't  know  a  word." 

^^ Mother's   Truth  keeps  constant  youth'''' 

"  Trench  gives,  as  an  instance  of  a  proverb  being  found  in 
three  languages  :  '  Mutter-treu  wird  taglich  neu.  Tendresse 
maternelle  toujours  se  renouvelle.  Mother's  truth  keeps  con- 
stant youth.'  It  seems  to  me  that  the  English  form  might 
refer  to  something  different.  We  learn  in  early  childhood  a 
vast  amount  of  truth  which  is  of  such  manifold  application 
that  it  can  never  lie  bedridden  in  the  soul,  but  the  experi- 
ence of  the  man  only  brings  this  truth  home  to  him  more 
forcibly  the  longer  he  lives,  so  that  it  keeps  constant  youth. 


Varia  509 

At  every  fresh  application  it  comes   to    him  again  with   the 
freshness  of  a  new  discovery." 

Hard  work 

"The  fact  is,  I  don't  really  know  what  hard  work  is. 
Robertson  tells  me  that  Temple  (the  Bishop  of  London) 
would  sometimes  work  two  days  and  two  nights  at  a  stretch. 
Butler  says  that  he  has  worked  at  an  examination  all  night 
and  gone  into  first  school  as  usual.  Broderick  says  that 
Roundell  Palmer  sometimes  works  all  night,  and  (Loid  Jus- 
tice) Coleridge  begins  at  four  in  the  morning." 

The  old  gentleman  of  the  ancien  i-egime 

"  Some  of  the  old  gentlemen  [at  Lord's]  were  of  a  type 
which,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  is  fast  becoming  impossible, 
owing  to  the  levelling  of  class  distinction.  The  English 
gentleman  I  am  now  thinking  of  has  as  perfect  conscious- 
ness of  class  distinctions  as  I  have  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween youth  and  manhood.  That  he  should  receive  respect 
from  his  social  inferiors  seems  to  him  as  much  a  matter  of 
course  as  I  think  it  that  a  boy  in  the  school  should  touch 
his  hat  to  me.  The  old  gentleman  of  this  type  always  looks 
his  part.  His  dress,  simple  as  it  is,  has  something  about  it 
as  distinctive  as  a  uniform,  and  yet  this  something  escapes 
analysis.  When  this  old  gentleman  is  a  good-hearted  man 
(as  he  mosdy  is),  one  cannot  but  feel  a  liking,  almost  an 
affection,  for  him ;  his  manners  are  so  perfect,  his  content- 
ment with  the  world,  himself  included,  is  so  genial.  But 
he  is  an  esprit  borne  with  a  vengeance,  and  one  talks  to  him 
much  as  one  talks  to  a  child." 

Two  good  stories 

"  Bell,  of  Christ's  Hospital,  told  us  of  a  German  professor 
who  was  found  by  a  friend  travelling  luxuriously  in  a  first-class 


5IO  R.  H.  Quick 

carriage  contrary  to  his  wont.  His  friend  asked  tiow  it  was, 
and  the  professor  explained  that  it  was  his  wedding  trip. 
'  Where  is  the  Frau  Professorin  ? '  asked  the  friend.  '  She  is 
at  home  :   we  could  not  afford  both  to  travel.' 

''  I  have  been  looking  at  Nonnius  Marcellus  in  Hachette's 
edition.  He  has  an  article  on  eliminare,  and  quotes  its  use 
in  Ennius  and  Attius.  I  remember  meeting  with  the  word 
in  Tertullian's  Apoloi^y.  Apropos  of  Nonnius,  I  heard  a  good 
story  of  Robinson  Ellis.  Shortly  after  the  war  of  '70  a  man 
told  Ellis  that  he  had  just  come  from  Sedan.  '  Have  you, 
indeed,'  said  Ellis  ;  '  that's  very  interesting.  The  first  edition 
of  Nonnius  Marcellus  was  published  at  Sedan.'  " 

Eaves-dropping 

"There  is  a  strong  prejudice  against  eaves-dropping,  but 
I  confess  I  always  like  to  hear  what  people  say  when  they 
are  not  under  the  same  restraints  as  they  are  when  they  ad- 
dress me.  I  don't  gratify  my  taste  as  a  rule,  but  if  I  have 
a  chance  of  listening  to  the  talk  of  children  amongst  them- 
selves, I  do.  In  the  streets  I  always  prick  up  my  ears.  One 
thus  gets  occasional  glimpses  into  a  different  world  to  one's 
own.  Very  often  I  have  heard  things  that  shocked  me. 
Still,  though  one  would  rather  think  of  children  as  simple- 
minded,  perhaps  it  is  better  we  should  know  them  as  they 
are,  not  as  we  wish  that  they  were. 

"  On  Sunday  last,  however,  I  overheard  a  scrap  of  conver- 
sation that  greatly  pleased  me.  It  was  in  town.  Some  little 
boys,  none  of  them  more  than  ten  years  old,  were  talking 
about  their  daily  life  —  the  usual  *  biography  and  history,'  as 
Carlyle  says  —  and  one  boy  said,  in  a  pretty,  childish  voice, 
'  I  always  do  the  best  I  can  for  the  governor,  for  he's  a 
good  governor  and  patient.  If  ever  I  do  anything  wrong....' 
The  rest  was  lost,  as  the  boys  got  out  of  hearing.  How 
little  we  think  of  our  dependents'  thoughts  about  us  !    The 


Varia  511 

'governor'  spoken  of  had  little  notion,  I  expect,  that  the 
child  gave  him  credit  for  his  patience.  We  know  we  don't 
understand  children,  and  we  assume  that  they  don't  under- 
stand us ;  but  they  probably  know  more  of  us  than  we  do 
of  them.  We  play  a  much  larger  part  in  their  lives  than 
they  do  in  ours.  As  we  get  older  our  interests  get  less  and 
less  personal.  General  truths  come  first ;  persons  are  often 
thought  of  only  in  connection  with  them.  But  with  the  young  ^ 
(as  always  perhaps  with  most  women)  the  personal  comes 
first,  and  they  see  general  truths  only  through  their  interest 
in  persons." 

A  lapsus  linguae 

"  An  inaugural  lecture  at  the  London  Hospital  by  Erichsen, 
in  which  the  lecturer  said  some  odd  things.  'There  is  one 
department  of  medicine,'  said  he,  '  in  which  we  do  not  seem 
to  make  progress ;  the  department,  that  is,  which  is  concerned 
with  the  treatment  of  diseases.'  He  dwelt  on  various  tests  of 
methods,  among  them,  statistics.  Statistics  were  often  useful, 
and  should  not  be  neglected.  *  There  is,  e.g.,'  he  said,  *  a 
certain  operation  which  is  often  performed  successfully,  but 
when  we  test  it  by  statistics  we  find  that  the  result  is  always 
fatal.'  Finally,  in  his  excitement,  at  the  close  the  lecturer 
waxed  eloquent,  but  must  have  misread  his  MS.  'When  I 
see  the  young  faces  before  me  (said  he),  I  cannot  escape  the 
melancholy  thought  how  few  of  you  will  ever  attain  the  Jail 
your  honourable  exertions  so  well  deserve.'  " 

The  Times  caught  napping 

"  An  editor  of  the  Times  (Chenery)  had  on  one  occasion 
to  write  an  article  after  dining,  not  wisely,  but  too  well.  Next 
morning  he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  remember  what  he 
had  said,  and  was  exceedingly  uncomfortable  till  the  Times 
appeared  and  his  article  proved  to  be  as  colourless  as  usual. 


512  R.  H.  Quick 

Perhaps  a  similar  incident  has  occurred  again.  The  first  leader 
in  the  Times  to-day  (Saturday,  19  Jan.  1878)  calls  Thursday 
yesterday  and  speaks  of  '  this  evening's  debate.'  " 

Mr  Gladstone  at  Home 

"25.  I.  80.  L.  told  me  the  other  day  of  his  dining  at 
^Hawarden  during  the  Bulgarian  excitement.  What  struck  L. 
was  Gladstone's  wonderful  grasp  of  every  kind  of  subject, 
and  his  exact  information  even  about  out-of-the-way  things 
He  was  also  struck  by  the  total  want  of  humour  both  in 
Mr  and  Mrs  Gladstone.  When  the  Globe  newspaper  came 
in,  Mrs  Gladstone  looked  at  it  and  said  quite  seriously,  *  O 
William,  there  are  such  shocking  things  about  you  ! '  and  she 
then  proceeded  to  read  them  aloud.  They  both  mourned  over 
the  perusal,  till  Gladstone  said  at  length,  '  My  dear,  I  think  we 
have  had  enough,  this  is  not  profitable  reading.'  "  ^ 

W.   T.  Harris 

"26  Aug.  1880.  Brussels.  Mr  William  T.  Harris,  who 
has  just  given  up  the  superintendency  of  the  schools  of 
St  Louis,  Mo.,  says  he  has  instituted  a  number  of  super- 
intendents whose  business  it  is  to  point  out  things  to  the 
teachers.  Some  of  these  are  so  good,  says  Mr  Harris,  that 
they  will  make  a  passable  teacher  of  anyone,  however  bad 
naturally.  The  plan  is  to  call  attention  to  one  weak  point 
at  a  time.  On  his  next  visit  the  inspector  observes  whether 
there  is  any  improvement,  and  keeps  on  till  he  gets  it  put 
right.     Then  he  goes  on  to  something  else." 

"27  Aug.  '80.  I  spent  last  evening  with  Mr  W.  T.  Harris 
and  Miss  Brackett.  Mr  Harris  I  take  to  be  one  of  the  best 
specimens  of  our  American  cousins  I  have  met  with.  One 
hears  a  great  deal  about  the  '  cuteness '  of  the  Americans, 
but  what    strikes   me  in   the    best  of  them   I  hav'e   met  is  a 


Dr  Harris  on  Education  513 

childlike  simplicity.  They  talk  away  about  what  interests 
them  as  the  best  sort  of  schoolboy  does.  In  the  case  of 
Dr  Harris  one  finds  a  quiet-mannered  man  of  about  fifty, 
with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a  boy.  He  delights  in  Walter 
Scott.  '  When  I  have  been  overworked,'  he  said,  '  I  read 
one  of  the  Waverleys  which  I  remember  least  well,  and  that 
is  as  good  as  a  three  weeks'  holiday.'  And  he  is  looking 
forward  to  a  trip  to  Scotland  to  hunt  up  all  the  sites.  It  is 
astonishing  to  find  a  man  with  energy  that  suffices  for  so 
many  pursuits.  He  is  great  in  Hegelian  philosophy,  which 
affects  all  his  thoughts,  and  he  is  editor  of  a  Journal  of 
Philosophy.  Then  comes  his  wonderful  activity  in  the  school- 
world.  He  is  now  going  to  make  a  study  of  the  educational 
system  of  England. 

"  Dr  Harris  has  interested  me  in  his  original  view  of 
education.  Almost  all  the  great  writers  on  education,  from 
Montaigne  downwards,  have  more  or  less  depreciated  book- 
learning.  This  tendency  has  been  strengthened  by  the  Emile, 
and  by  the  subsequent  writings  of  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel. 
Rousseau  and  his  followers  look  on  education  simply  as  a 
developing  of  the  inborn  faculties  of  the  child.  Their  fa- 
vourite illustrations  are  drawn  from  the  vegetable  world.  The 
educator  is  the  gardener,  &c.  But  Dr  Harris  takes  a  dif- 
ferent view  of  education.  He  says  everyone  who  is  born  in  an 
advanced  civilisation  like  ours  neither  can  nor  ought  to  be 
brought  up  like  the  '  child  of  nature,'  who  owes  nothing  to 
his  progenitor  except  a  healthy  body.  The  child  now-a- 
days  is  the  inheritor  of  a  vast  intellectual  patrimony,  and  it 
is  the  business  of  education  to  put  him  in  possession  of  his 
patrimony.  Rousseau's  depreciation  of  all  that  has  been  al- 
ready thought  and  done  is  simply  absurd.  In  everything  we 
must  take  our  stand  on  the  foundations  already  laid,  and 
must  work  upon  them.  We  should  no  more  despise  the 
work  of  our  spiritual  ancestors  than  if  we  were  polyps  in  a 
coral  reef.     Now  the  grand  intellectual  tradition  passes  from 


514  R.  H.  Quick 

one  generation  to  another  by  means  of  language,  and  more 
particularly  by  written  language,  i.e.  by  books.  The  chief 
function  of  education  is,  then,  to  enable  the  educated  to  use 
books.  The  study  of  foreign  languages,  too,  gives  us  a  con- 
sciousness of  other  ways  of  thinking  such  as  can  be  obtained 
by  no  other  study.  The  study  of  Greek  is  especially  valuable 
to  Englishmen  because  the  Greeks  had  just  what  the  Romans 
and  the  English  want,  the  habit  of  looking  round  them  and 
before  them  with  open  eyes,  not  tearing  on  like  a  locomotive 
engine,  whether  on  the  rails  or  off.  It  is  to  me  extremely 
interesting  to  compare  this  notion  of  education,  which  makes 
it  consist  in  putting  us  an  couratit  with  the  civilisation  into 
which  we  are  born,  with  the  notion  of  education  which  at- 
taches no  importance  to  knowledge  as  such,  and  denies  the 
existence  of  knowledge  not  acquired  by  Anschauung.^'' 

American  Institutions 

"  30.  7.  81.  Yesterday  I  saw,  at  Morley's  Hotel,  President 
F.  A.  P.  Barnard,  of  Columbia  College,  N.  Y.  He  was  very 
anxious  that  women  should  have  the  same  instructors  as  men. 
It  would  not  do  for  them  merely  to  be  taught  the  same  things 
or  by  the  same  books  :  they  must  come  in  contact  with  first- 
rate  teachers.  Agassiz  once  said  that  a  student  would  gain 
more  from  a  first-rate  man  in  two  months  than  from  an  ordi- 
nary man  in  twenty  years. 

"  Barnard  spoke  of  the  absurdities  that  come  of  their  po- 
litical appointments.  One  man,  who  was  run  in  to  be  director 
of  some  great  Government  puddling  works,  went  after  his  ap- 
pointment to  a  professor  of  geology  and  inquired  of  him  what 
puddling  was.  Another  man,  who  had  failed  to  get  some 
small  post  in  the  College  of  Mississippi,  applied  for  the  post 
of  president  when  it  fell  vacant.  In  his  letter  to  the  trustees 
who  elected  he  wrote,  '  Try  me  for  a  year,  and  I  pledge  myself 
to  resign  if  I  have  not  given  satisfaction  to  the  Trustees  and 
the  Democratic  Party.'  " 


Thoughts  on  an  idol  515 

Oil  an  idol  at  the  British  Museum 

"25.  8.  81.  Everyone  who  visits  the  British  Museum 
must  observe  outside  the  building,  and  close  to  the  entrance- 
door,  a  huge  monolith  carved  roughly  into  something  like 
the  human  form,  an  idol  probably  from  ancient  Egypt  or 
Nineveh.  Most  of  the  British  public  give  it  a  vacant  stare 
and  pass  on,  but  it  might  awaken  some  strange  thoughts  in 
them.  Can  the  universe  of  the  Cockney  of  the  19th  century 
be  the  same  as  the  universe  of  the  men  who  carved  the 
image  to  represent  their  idea  of  the  divine  3000  years  ago? 
We  cannot  enter  into  the  thoughts  of  those  men  any  more 
than  they  could  enter  into  ours.  We  have  changed  indeed, 
but  is  the  change  all  progress?  Was  their  IVe/tansicht  when 
it  differed  from  ours  all  wrong?  Is  ours  all  right?  We  have 
indeed  made  many  wonderful  discoveries,  and  the  rich  among 
us  pass  through  life  much  more  comfortably  than  the  people 
of  old,  and  what  is  much  better,  they  have  little  to  fear  from 
the  lawless  violence  of  the  great ;  but  as  for  what  really  raises 
a  man  al)ove  the  flux  of  material  things  —  faith  in  the  un- 
seen —  we  seem  as  low  in  the  scale  as  human  beings  ever 
were.  The  ordinary  Cockney  who  stares  at  the  image  at  the 
British  Museum  and  thinks  (if  he  thinks  at  all),  'What  fools 
those  old  fellows  must  have  been  to  worship  such  a  thing  as 
that ! '  perhaps  is  not  much  the  wiser  for  having  given  up  wor- 
ship altogether." 

Babel 

"  18.  6.  82.  Seeley  long  ago  said  that  the  schoolmaster 
stopped  the  progress  of  the  building  up  of  young  knowledge 
by  stepping  in  and  confounding  the  language.     He 

"  '  In  derision  sets 
Upon  their  tongues  a  various  spirit,  to  raze 
Quite  out  their  native  language ;  and,  instead, 
To  sow  a  jangling  noise  of  words  unknown.' 

"'Paradise  Lost,  xu.  52-55." 


5i6  R.  H.  Quick 


A  coincidence 

"  i6.  5.  83.  The  following  coincidence  is  so  odd  that  I 
put  it  down  while  I  can  do  so  accurately. 

"  About  twenty  years  ago  I  was  in  a  third-class  carriage  on 
the  railway  between  Vienna  and  Trieste,  and  with  me  was 
J.  Spittal.  It  was  a  carriage  where  you  could  see  from  end 
to  end.  I  don't  know  what  the  peasants  in  the  next  com- 
partment were  about ;  I  fancy  they  tried  to  force  a  window 
up  or  down.  Anyhow  they  broke  it  and  we  heard  the  smash, 
though  at  the  minute  we  were  not  looking  and  did  not  see 
the  window  broken.  At  the  next  station  a  soldier  got  in. 
The  guard  of  the  train  kept  wrangling  with  the  peasants, 
who  stoutly  denied  having  broken  the  window.  The  guard 
declared  it  was  very  hard  on  him,  as  he  should  have  to  pay. 
At  length  the  soldier  seemed  struck  with  the  same  view,  and 
he  offered  his  evidence  as  having  seen  the  peasants  break 
the  window.  This  naturally  astonished  us,  as  we  knew  that, 
though  the  peasants  had  broken  the  window,  the  soldier  was 
not  there  when  it  was  done.  At  Trieste  we  saw  the  peasants 
marched  off  by  the  guard  with  the  soldier  for  witness. 

"  Now,  this  story  Spittal  and  I  have  no  doubt  repeated  to 
different  peojjle,  but  in  my  case  certainly  not  for  years,  for  it 
has  not  been  a  favourite  of  mine,  and  I  fancy  not  of  his. 

"  Last  night  I  was  with  Storr,  in  Charles  Munro's  in  Caius, 
when  Storr  said  a  friend  of  his  had  been  in  a  crowded  train 
at  Hendon,  where  the  squash  was  so  great  that  a  window  was 
broken.  At  the  next  station  a  sailor  (he  afterwards  said  he 
meant  a  soldier)  got  in  and  afterwards  backed  up  the  guard 
and  swore  he  had  seen  the  window  broken,  &c.,  &c.  Every 
incident  was  the  same. 

"  The  story  ?ni/st  be  our  story,  but  how  can  it  have  got 
naturalised  here  long  after  it  ought  to  have  been  forgotten 
according  to  all  rules  of  probability  ?  " 


Varia  5 1 7 


Importatice  of  externals 

"  It  is  odd  that  words  should  depend  for  their  effect  on 
the  voice  or  even  the  type,  yet  so  it  is.  I  take  a  pencil  and 
write  on  a  sheet  of  note-paper  a  notice  of  a  night-school  to 
be  held  in  the  National  Schools,  and  I  can  hardly  recognise 
my  own  notice  when  it  comes  back  as  a  striking  poster  with 
the  important  words  an  inch  tall  and  in  letters  a  quarter  of  an 
inch  thick." 

Mostly  ifj  the  tunnel 

"  7.  3.  86.  (On  a  journey  from  Florence  to  Genoa.) 
"  I  once  passed  over  a  railway  the  greater  part  of  which  is 
a  series  of  tunnels.  Between  the  tunnels  we  got  most  lovely 
peeps  of  the  Mediterranean,  with  villages  on  the  cliffs  over  it, 
the  houses  sometimes  nestling  in  hollows  right  down  to  the 
water. 

"  This  journey  was  an  image  of  our  ordinary  lives.  A 
great  part  of  our  time  we  are  rushing  along  in  the  dark, 
seeing  nothing  but  what  we  can  put  our  hands  on.  We 
believe  that  the  sun  is  shining,  but  no  ray  gives  us  evidence 
of  it.  But  now  and  then  we  are  astonished  by  glimpses  of 
a  glorious  world  which  is  there  all  the  time  and  we  almost 
forgot  it." 

Battle  of  the  Alma 

"  6  Dec.  '88.  Yesterday  I  had  a  talk  with  Mr  Harrison, 
Sr,  of  Harrison  and  Sons,  who  print  the  London  Gazette. 
He  told  me  he  was  with  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  when  the 
news  of  the  victory  of  the  Alma  came  in  1854.  It  was  be- 
tween 5  and  6  o'clock,  when  all  the  evening  papers  were 
out.  The  Duke  asked  how  it  would  be  possible  to  spread 
the  news  that  night.  Mr  Harrison  suggested  that  the  tid- 
ings should  be  announced  at  the  theatres.     The  Duke  caught 


5i8  R.  H.  Quick 

at  the  suggestion  and  Mr  Harrison  sent  down  his  head  man 
(much  to  his  disgust,  for  he  hated  theatres)  to  interview  the 
manager  at  each,  and  the  news  was  given  out  from  the  stage 
among  the  wildest  excitement.  Mr  Harrison  himself  went 
to  the  Mansion  House  and  had  the  Lord  Mayor  fetched 
out  from  a  Sheriffs'  dinner.  In  those  days  there  was  great 
difficulty  in  procuring  news  about  the  killed  and  wounded. 
Mr  Harrison  had  to  remonstrate  with  some  ladies  who  had 
forced  their  way  into  tlie  printing-office.  They  consented  to 
go  only  on  his  undertaking  to  find  out  all  he  could  for 
them.  On  consulting  the  list  he  found  that  he  had  very 
bad  news  for  them,  and  he  called  aside  a  gentleman  who 
was  with  them  and  told  him  to  get  them  home  and  break 
it  to  them  there." 

A  kid  seethed  in  goafs  milk 

"  25  May,  '79.  An  old  Dutchman  staying  here  (Hotel 
Taunus,  Schwalbach)  has  been  telling  us  how  brutally  chil- 
dren were  beaten  in  his  youth.  He  remembers  one  occasion 
on  which  he  met  with  great  injustice.  One  Monday  he  was 
going  to  school  with  a  written  exercise  he  had  done  on  the 
Saturday.  He  put  down  his  books  and  exercise  to  have  a 
game  with  another  boy  and  a  goat  came  and  ate  up  the 
exercise.  He  went  into  school  and  sat  shaking  with  fear  for 
an  hour,  when  he  began  to  hope  that  he  was  not  going  to 
be  asked  for  his  exercise ;  but  he  hoped  too  soon.  He  w-as 
called  upon  to  produce  it,  and  when  he  told  his  story  he 
got  a  double  beating,  one  for  idleness  and  one  for  lying." 

Deafi   Bradley  at  Rugby 

"4  Nov.  '79.  Dined  yesterday  at  Henry  Sidgwick's. 
Sidgwick  told  stories  of  the  power  Bradley  used  to  get  over 
boys  at  Rugby.     He  did  it  both  by  sarcasm  and  by  a  kind 


Rugby  7'eminiscences  519 

of  flattery.  He  would  say,  '  Jones,  you  have  not  brought  me 
any  Latin  prose.'  'Yes,  Sir,  I  put  it  on  your  desk.'  'Oh! 
this  is  what  you  call  Latin  prose  ! '  On  one  occasion  a  boy 
who  was  understood  to  have  come  into  his  property  and  gave 
himself  airs  accordingly  was  sitting  with  his  arras  folded,  when 
Bradley  called  to  him,  'X.,  I  wish  you  would  look  a  little  less 
like  a  retired  statesman.'  Sidgwick  said  that  Jevons  was  a 
dull  boy  at  school,  and  in  his  writing  one  saw  that  this  was 
possible.  Most  original  thinkers  are  independent  because 
original,  but  he  is  original  because  independent.  He  can't 
understand  a  hne  of  thought  without  thinking  the  thing  out 
for  himself,  and  in  doing  this  he  becomes  original.  Seeley 
quoted  Hales,  who  was  at  Louth  School  where  Tennyson 
had  been ;  and  when  Tennyson  was  made  Poet  Laureate 
the  Headmaster  told  the  boys  this  must  be  an  encourage- 
ment to  the  most  backward  among  them,  as  Tennyson  owed 
his  new  honour  purely  to  hard  work." 

Reminiscences  of  Arnold  and  Longley 

"  Mr  J.  W,  Cunningham  remembers  Stanley  at  Rugby. 
I  asked  him  (J.  W.  C.)  about  Arnold.  He  said  the  boys 
feared  him  very  much,  and  a  great  impression  of  his  severity 
had  remained  with  him.  His  influence  was  due  a  good  deal 
to  his  being  so  truly  grieved  when  anything  went  wrong.  He 
did  all  he  could  to  encourage  originality.  Mr  Cunningham 
once  took  to  his  tutor  as  an  essay  some  historical  tables  he 
had  made  in  parallel  columns  and  worked  out  with  pains. 
The  tutor  objected  it  was  not  an  essay.  Cunningham  said 
he  thought  Dr  Arnold  would  like  it.  '  He  may,  perhaps  ;  I 
don't,'  was  the  answer.  Arnold  did  like  it  very  much,  and 
criticised  it  very  carefully. 

"  Mr  Cunningham  said  the  grand  lesson  he  had  learnt 
from  Arnold  was  the  feeling  of  responsibility.  Arnold  seems 
to  have  been  very  stern,  and  never  to   have  unbent  in   the 


520  R.  H.  Quick 

school.  He  never  had  anything  to  do  with  the  games,  and 
never  looked  on  at  them. 

"  Cunningham  remembers  his  surprise  when  he  went  for 
the  first  time  as  a  Sixth  Form  boy  to  dine  with  Dr  Arnold 
and  found  the  doctor  lying  on  his  back  with  children  clam- 
bering about  him.  Arnold  laughed  when  he  came  in,  and 
said,  '  You  see  I  can't  get  up.'  A  similar  story  is  told,  I 
think,  in  Stanley's  Arnold. 

"  Cunningham's  story,  told  him  by  Archbishop  Longley,  of 
the  state  of  Harrow  in  Longley's  time,  is  wonderful.  Longley, 
coming  out  of  Oldfield  House  at  10.30  at  night,  saw  a  boy 
near  him.  He  gave  chase  and  caught  the  boy  by  the  tail. 
The  tail  came  off  and  the  boy  escaped.  Next  morning  all  the 
Sixth  came  up  to  first  school  with  only  one  tail ! " 

Z>r  Arnold 

"  I  was  talking  to  Bull  (of  Harrow)  about  Arnold.  Bull 
was  in  Lower  Bench  of  Sixth  at  Rugby  under  him.  Arnold 
was  in  Bull's  mind  what  he  is  depicted  in  Tom  Browfi. 

"  The  horror  of  ignorance  which  Arnold  showed  was  surely 
a  weakness.  He  turned  David  Vaughan  down  three  places  in 
the  Sixth  for  not  knowing  what  the  Kalends  were." 

A  Jesuit  Plan  in  English  Schools 

"8.  10.  87.  Sir  Francis  Doyle  tells  how,  in  a  school  he 
went  to,  kept  by  one  Clement,  a  Frenchman,  any  boy  who 
was  overheard  speaking  English  by  a  schoolmate  who  had 
'  the  mark '  could  pass  the  mark  on  to  him,  and  the  boy  who 
finally  had  it  was  punished.  In  this  case  '  Prenez  la  marque  ' 
was  not  accompanied  by  any  visible  sign,  but  I  remember  the 
practice  was  in  vogue  at  Dempster's  in  my  day,  and  an  actual 
mark  (a  bit  of  wood)  was  passed  on.  Doyle  tells  that  the 
boys   conspired   to    minimise   the    nuisance,  and  so    did  we. 


The    Ways  of  Editors  521 

With  us  it  was  in  force  in  schooltime  only,  and  we  indulged 
in  a  kind  of  French  not  spoken  at  Stratford-atte-Bow  or  any- 
where else  ;  '  Lendez  moi  un  knife  '  was  called  by  us  French. 
It  is  odd  that  a  detestable  plan  of  the  Jesuits  got  a  hold  in 
English  private  schools." 

Experioice  of  Editors 

"  In  considering  literature  as  a  profession,  the  writer  [in 
Spectator,  Dec.  4,  '79]  assumes  that  editors  are  discerning 
people,  and  that  an  enlightened  regard  for  their  own  inter- 
ests makes  them  ready  to  see  literary  ability  and  to  employ 
it.  But,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  facts  are  the  other  way.  The 
editor,  I  take  it,  is  blinded  by  conventions.  He  is  accus- 
tomed to  a  certain  sort  of  article,  and  can  perhaps  (when  he 
takes  the  trouble)  decide  whether  an  article  of  this  kind  is 
good  or  bad,  but  anything  not  exactly  falling  in  with  these 
conventions  seems  to  him  an  abortion.  I  suppose  the  aver- 
age editor  is  not  a  better  critic  than  the  Edinhiirgli  Reviewer 
who  began  his  article  on  Wordsworth's  poetry,  '  This  will 
never  do,'  or  the  reviewer  who  told  Keats  to  go  back  to 
his  gallipots.  No  pubHsher's  reader  could  see  any  merit  in 
the  Rejected  Addresses  or  in  Washington  Irving's  Sketch  Book. 
So  I  doubt  the  editor's  discernment  beyond  a  very  narrow 
range.  Then  again,  one  supposes  a  regard  to  their  own  in- 
terests will  make  them  anxious  to  recognise  and  employ  a 
good  man ;  but  in  point  of  fact  things  are  very  much  deter- 
mined by  haphazard  or  by  personal  considerations.  It  is, 
of  course,  to  the  grocer's  interest  to  buy  good  and  cheap 
coffee  and  tea,  and  it  makes  no  manner  of  difference  to 
him  whether  the  traveller  be  an  acquaintance  or  not,  as  he 
comes  from  a  firm  not  likely  to  cheat ;  but  in  point  of  fact 
the  grocers  make  a  sort  of  connection  with  the  traveller, 
and,  if  they  like  him,  continue  to  buy  of  him  even  when  he 
changes  his  firm.     Personal   liking  has    more    influence    than 


522  R.  H.  Quick 

the  price  of  his  goods.  So  it  is  throughout  Hfe.  Peopie  will 
do  this  or  that  to  oblige  a  friend  when  they  won't  do  it  for 
any  other  reason. 

"Of  course  anybody  reading  this  will  say,  'You  have 
tried  to  get  your  own  writings  into  papers  and  magazines; 
you  have  generally  failed,  and  so  you  suppose  the  editors 
must  be  careless  or  stupid.  The  more  natural  inference 
would  be  that  you  sent  them  what  was  not  good  for  much.' 
But  I  am  not  judging  by  my  own  experience  only.  When 
I  was  at  Harrow  I  sent  to  the  Graphic  and  the  Illustrated 
about  the  Tercentenary,  and  enclosed  tickets  for  the  lunch. 
I  did  the  same  when  the  Prince  of  Wales  came  to  Speeches. 
Neither  paper  would  do  anything.  At  the  same  time  they 
had  a  picture  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  giving  prizes  at  New 
Cross.  Here  was  a  case  of  sheer  carelessness  in  one  case 
and  probably  of  personal  motive  in  the  other.  I  must  say  I 
expected,  when  I  was  appointed  by  the  University  to  lecture, 
that  some  magazine  or  other  would  have  taken  my  intro- 
ductory lecture,  but  Grove  and  Tulloch  refused  promptly. 
The  result  I  have  come  to  is  that  editors  like  to  keep  to  a 
certain  set  of  contributors  whom  they  can  depend  on  for 
giving  them  the  sort  of  thing  they  want,  at  the  time  they 
want  it,  and  I  fancy  it  is  hard  to  push  oneself  into  this  set. 
When  they  draw  from  other  sources  it  is  to  oblige  a  friend  or 
to  have  a  name  that  is  known  to  the  public." 

Chad  the  cricketer 

"i6  Nov.  '75.  Spent  from  Saturday  to  Monday  at 
Harrow. 

"  G.  O.  Trevelyan  said  he  remembered  Steel's  house 
almost  illuminating  at  the  news  that  a  celebrated  bully  had 
lost  an  arm  at  the  battle  of  Inkerman.  Mr  Ponsonby  told  an 
amusing  story  of  old  Chad.  Chad  was  celebrated  for  single- 
wicket  matches,  and    had  a  marvellous  skill  in    throwing  up. 


A  cricket  sfojy  523 

In  some  match  the  other  man,  in  running,  got  between  him 
and  the  wicket.  Chad  stood  this  a  time  or  two  and  then 
threw  right  at  him,  and,  taking  him  in  the  small  of  the  back, 
dropped  him,  and  there  he  lay  unable  to  move.  '  And  what 
did  you  do,  Chad?'  the  boys  would  ask  Chad  as  he  told  his 
favourite  story.  '  Well,'  said  Chad,  '  I  just  went  and  picked 
up  the  ball  and  put  down  his  wicket.'  " 


524  R-  H.  Quick 


CRITICISMS  OF  BOOKS 

Kiddle  and  Schemes   Cyclopcvdia  of  Education 

"I  have  to-day  (22.  8.  77)  received  from  the  publishers 
a  nicely  bound  copy  of  Kiddle  and  Schem's  Cyclopczdia  of 
Educatio7i.  In  form  the  book  is  excellent,  and  I  have  no 
doubt,  it  will  be  very  useful ;  but,  after  looking  through  a 
number  of  articles,  I  don't  find  much  wisdom.  Of  the  eyes 
which  do  glare  without  how  few  can  see  !  In  this  book,  of 
course,  space  has  to  be  economised,  but  in  many  cases  the 
writer  finds  room  for  quite  unimportant  particulars  about  a 
man's  life  and  omits  to  say  what  use  the  man  was  to  edu- 
cation. In  the  sketch  of  the  History  of  Education  Pestalozzi 
is  said  to  have  been  remarkable  only  for  his  enthusiasm  ! 
F.  A.  Wolf  is  not  considered  worthy  of  notice.  Most  articles 
give  at  the  end  names  of  authorities,  but  they  should  give 
under  the  bibliography  rather  more  than  the  names  of  the 
books.  The  writer  of  Jacofot  gives  me  as  his  principal  au- 
thority but  he  has  not  made  out  much  about  Jacotot,  and 
says  that  his  method  of  teaching  foreign  languages  was  just 
the  same  as  Hamilton's  !  ^  On  the  whole  one  is  convinced 
more  than  ever  that  most  writing  is  mere  babble,  and  that 
the  great  thing  is  to  get  wise  writing,  be  it  in  ever  so  small 
(juantities,  and  burn  the  rest.  The  U.  S.  people  go  in  too 
much  for  ([uantity.  Vivre  de  pen  should  be  the  rule  for  mind 
as  well  as  body." 

Quarterly  Revieiu,  '  Our  Schools  and  Schoolmasters,^ 
Jan.  'jg. 

"On  p.  178  is  an  onslaught  on  '  Pedagogy,'  but  a  very 
clumsy  one.  As  the  man  is  not  trying  to  speak  the  truth, 
it  is  hardly  worth  noticing  what  he  says.     He  gives  it  as  his 


The  Latin  Primer  525 

opinion  that  '  tlie  new  science  might  have  found  a  fitting 
home  amongst  the  inhabitants  of  Laputa.'  He  next  goes  on 
to  abuse  with  some  success  the  new  swarm  of  text-books  and 
handbooks  to  every  conceivable  subject.  At  the  end  is  an 
odd  passage  which  only  a  stupid  man  would  append  to  an 
attack  on  Pedagogy.  '  If  our  education  is  to  be  guided  in 
the  full  eye  of  Parliament,  if  we  are  to  be  assured  that  every 
step  forward  is  to  be  weighed  and  calculated  beforehand,  if 
we  are  to  provide  against  the  danger  of  sudden  reaction  and 
the  extravagance  of  individual  whims  and  fancies,  we  must 
[investigate  the  science  of  education?  oh  no  !  we  must]  ac- 
cei)t  that  organisation  of  the  central  authority  upon  which 
Lord  Hampton  has  for  some  years  insisted  with  indubi- 
table [ !]  logic,  and  we  must  estabhsh  with  as  little  delay  as 
may  be  a  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  prepared  to  use  to 
the  full,  and  yet  moderate  where  needful,  all  the  educational 
energy  of  the  nation.'  The  Minister  is  to  have  a  council 
of  men  selected  for  the  purpose  who  will  stimulate  where 
needful,  and  will  check  whimsical  extravagance  and  waste. 
At  present  we  may  drift  without  taking  note  of  our  own 
progress  or  recognising  the  point  of  the  compass  towards 
which  we  move." 

(This  criticism  was  pursued  in  a  letter  to  Spectator,  i  Feb.  '79.) 


The  Public  School  Latin  Primer 

"29.  9.  82.  As  my  boys  will  probably  have  the  Latin 
Primer  at  their  next  school,  I  have  just  been  looking  at  it 
to  see  if  I  can  grind  them  up  in  it,  but  what  an  astoundingly 
bad  book  it  is  !  I  do  not  think  I  am  prejudiced ;  I  have  a 
great  respect  for  Kennedy,  and  he  has  treated  me  with  great 
kindness  ;  but  he  can  know  nothing  of  elementary  teaching, 
and  the  book  bewilders  beginners  with  useless  things  and 
does   not  give    prominence    to    many    things    that    are    really 


526  R.  H.  Quick 

useful.     Besides,   it  teaches   some    things    that  are   positively 
wrong." 

(Detailed  criticisms  follow.) 

An  ideal  History  of  Education 

"  27.  7.  85.  James  Ward  would  not  make  the  history 
simply  a  study  of  the  reformers.  He  would  try  to  ascer- 
tain :  ist.  what  each  generation  took  the  child  to  be  ;  2nd. 
what  it  endeavoured  to  do  for  the  child  ;  3rd.  what  means 
it  employed.  The  old  fault  was  the  same  as  we  find  among 
ignorant  people  now.  They  look  upon  children  simply  as 
inferior  men  and  women,  and  want  to  give  just  that  know- 
ledge that  will  come  in  useful  by  and  by." 

German  Fach-literatur 

"  19.  II.  88.  I  have  been  looking  at  my  German  educa- 
tional books.  What  a  fearful  quantity  has  been  written  about 
everything  !  To  master  any  small  corner  of  the  subject  one 
needs  a  German's  industry  and  a  German's  habit  of  special- 
ising. But  we  want  light,  and  most  of  these  Germans  con- 
tribute fuel  only,  and  in  many  cases  they  pile  up  for  fuel 
stuff  that  won't  burn.  England  and  France  contribute  few 
fuel  collectors,  but  sometimes  we  have  a  man  who  can  set 
light  to  the  fuel,  and  he  is  the  valuable  man  after  all.  As 
yet  we  have  had  among  Itnglish  writers  on  the  history  of  edu- 
cation no  Carlyle  or  Seeley,  or  even  a  Macaulay.  In  Germany 
the  men  of  ideas  can't  write.  They  have  a  Pestalozzi  and  a 
Frocbel,  but  no  Rousseau." 

A.   Bain's  Education  as  a  Science 

"5  Feb.  '79.  I  have  been  getting  on  with  Bain,  but  it 
is  a  dull  book.  I^'or  what  class  of  readers  is  it  written? 
The  pco])le  who  know  all  about  nirntal  science  will  not 
care  enough  for  education  to  ica<l  a  book  about  the  appli- 
cation   of  this    science    to    education,    and    1    am    quite    sure 


Bains  ' Educalioji'  527 

that  most  people  who  have  to  do  with  education  are  too 
ignorant  of  mental    science  to  be  able   to    get    through  the 

book  with  understanding   or  interest ///   limine  comes  an 

antipathy  to  scientific  treatment  of  some  parts  of  the  subject. 
Bain  himself  says  he  should  not  like  to  turn  justice  into  a 
machine  and  be  able  to  put  certain  evidence  into  the  hopper 
and  then  turn  the  handle  for  the  proper  penalty.  In  the 
same  way  the  scientific  treatment  of  some  parts  of  educa- 
tion has  much  too  mechanical  an  aspect  to  attract  us.  There 
is  something  very  repulsive  to  ordinary  minds  (to  mine  at 
least)  in  the  scientific  treatment  of  the  emotions,  especially 
of  those  which  we  share  in  common  with  otiier  animals. 
This  feeling  of  repulsion  may  be  a  weakness,  but  it  must 
be  allowed  for  nevertheless.  We  listen  to  the  philosophers 
impatiently,  and,  instead  of  thanking  them  for  the  useful 
hints  they  give  us,  we  are  always  on  the  look-out  for  an 
opportunity  of  laughing  at  them.  The  mistakes,  even  the 
most  pernicious  mistakes  of  use  and  wont,  we  treat  with  all 
indulgence,  but,  if  we  can  catch  the  theorist  tripping,  we 
raise  a  guffaw  directly.  Take  the  misery  inflicted  on  the 
young  by  the  long  school  hours,  the  dull  tasks  and  the 
schoolmaster's  brutality  in  days  gone  by.  All  this  is  readily 
condoned,  but  those  who  were  not  content  with  use  and  wont 
are  condemned  even  by  Wordsworth  as  — 

" '  These  mighty  workmen  of  our  later  age, 
Who  with  a  broad  highway  have  overbridged 
The  froward  chaos  of  futurity 
Paved  to  their  bidding  ;   they  who  have  the  skill 
To  manage  works  and  things  and  make  them  act 
On  infants'  minds  as  surely  as  the  sun 
Deals  with  a  flower ;  the  keepers  of  our  time, 
The  guides  and  wardens  of  our  faculties. 
Sages  who  in  their  prescience  would  control 
All  accidents,  and  to  the  very  road 
Which  they  have  fashioned  would  confine  us  down 
Like  engines.''  —  Prelude. 


528  R.  H.  Quick 

There  is  then  a  dislike  to  the  attempt  to  analyse  our  feel- 
ings, and  the  feelings  often  seem  to  defy  analysis.  Nothing 
is  more  provoking  than  a  would-be  explanation  which  we  feel 
to  be  no  explanation  at  all.  Hobbes  tries  to  account  for 
laughter,  and  says  it  arises  from  a  feeling  of  superiority  to 
somebody  else.  We  feel  at  once  that  this  account  of  the 
phenomenon  is  altogether  inadequate.  Some  of  Bain's  at- 
tempts seem  to  me  no  less  inadequate,  e.g.  when  he  says 
that  games  take  their  zest  from  the  satisfaction  of  the  malevo- 
lent passions.  Chas.  James  Fox  said  that  the  next  greatest 
pleasure  to  winning  at  cards  was  losing  at  cards.  Was  his 
malevolence  so  great  that  it  took  pleasure  whenever  there 
was  a  victim,  even  himself  ?  Thus  the  attempt  at  exhaustive 
analysis  has  two  great  drawbacks.  (i)  The  analysis  is  not 
after  all,  and  cannot  be,  exhaustive  (take  e.g.  Bain's  para- 
graph about  poetry).  (2)  A  number  of  things  are  put  in, 
not  that  the  mention  of  them  is  useful  or  entertaining,  but 
simply  to  make  the  account  complete.  This  book  suffers 
from  both  these  drawbacks.  We  feel  that  nothing  is  treated 
fully,  and  that  many  things  mentioned  are  not  worth  men- 
tioning. And,  when  analysis  is  at  all  complete,  it  is  for  the 
ordinary  reader  simply  bewildering.  If  we  brought  a  host  of 
considerations  to  bear  on  our  every-day  acts  we  should  con- 
stantly come  to  a  standstill.  A  man  who  was  very  clever  in 
taking  pieces  of  metal  out  of  the  eyes  of  a  fellow-workman 
so  interested  an  oculist  that  the  oculist  took  him  in  hand 
and  taught  him  the  structure  of  the  eye ;  but,  when  the 
workman  knew  the  risks  he  ran  in  operating,  he  lost  nerve 
and  could  never  operate  again. 

"  Bain  calls  logic  the  grammar  of  knowledge.  Perhaps  we 
no  more  want  logic  for  ordinary  reasoning  than  grammar  for 
ordinary  speech  in  our  mother  tongue.  But  grammar  may 
give  us  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  language  we  use, 
and  may  at  times  modify  our  practice.  Similarly  about  style, 
Herbert    Spencer  says   that  rules   useless  in  writing  are  very 


Baiiis  'Education^  529 

useful  in  correcting  what  we  have  written.  Perhaps  a  book 
like  Bain's  may  do  for  us  what  logic,  grammar,  rhetoric  do 
in  their  several  departments.  It  would  be  as  absurd  to  set 
out  as  a  teacher  in  reliance  on  Bain  as  to  try  to  reason  by 
Aldrich  or  to  talk  English  by  Mason.  But  as  tests  and  cor- 
rections, the  theoretical  exposition  and  the  rules  derived  from 
it  may  be  of  great  assistance.  All  teachers  should  from  time 
to  time  carefully  examine  their  own  practice,  and  in  doing 
this  rules  may  giv'e  us  a  standard  by  which  we  may  estimate 
and  correct  what  we  are  doing.  Much  of  what  he  says  about 
history  and  geography  is  well  worth  reading,  but  in  it  we  see 
a  thoughtful  and  sensible  man  laying  down  the  law  without 
much  attempt  at  reasoning ;  and  his  directions,  however  good 
in  themselves,  have  as  little  title  to  be  called  science  as  the 
recipes  of  a  cookery-book." 

"  13  Feb.  '79.  Bain  finished  at  last !  It  is  the  hard  for- 
tune of  a  critic  that  he  has  to  pass  a  judgment  on  much 
that  he  would  gladly  leave  unjudged.  We  all  of  us  have 
among  our  friends  persons  of  sterling  worth  who  happen  to 
be  destitute  of  pleasing  appearance  or  of  pleasing  manners. 
In  such  cases  we  think  of  their  good  qualities,  their  upright- 
ness, their  benevolence,  their  usefulness  to  society  or  to  their 
immediate  friends,  and  we  avoid  forming,  and  still  more  ex- 
pressing, any  opinion  on  their  features  or  deportment.  But 
the  hterary  critic  must  form  an  opinion  about  the  manner  of 
his  author,  and  must  express  it  even  in  his  author's  hearing. 
In  the  present  instance  dire  necessity  compels  me  to  say 
that  I  have  seldom  read  a  book  of  sterling  merit  so  totally 
destitute  of  charm,  of  everything  in  fact  which  makes  reading 
attractive,  as  this  volume  of  Bain's.  Of  course  it  may  be  said 
that  the  book  aims  at  being  scientific,  and  therefore  must  be 
dull.  No  doubt  abstract  propositions  cannot  be  entertaining, 
but  there  may  be  a  kind  of  charm  in  the  exposition  even  of 
abstractions  for  all  those  who  are  capable  of  understanding 
them.     Huxley's  account  of  Hume's  philosophy  is  a  case  in 

2M 


530  jR.  H.  Quick 

point.  The  mind  of  the  reader  is  presented  with  a  clear 
image  of  what  the  writer  means,  and  clearness  in  such  a  case 
has  a  charm  of  its  own.  But  Bain  gives  nothing  of  the  same 
clear-cut  outline  to  the  conception  his  readers  get  from  him. 

"  When  we  talk  of  education  as  a  science  we  cannot  mean 
that  it  is  a  science  in  itself,  like  geometry,  but  an  applied 
science  whose  principles  must  be  sought  from  other  sciences, 
especially,  as  it  is  generally  assumed,  from  physiology  and 
psychology.  But  to  the  bearings  of  physiology  Bain  devotes 
only  three  pages  out  of  452.  There  is  only  one  Point  where 
the  Professor  is  anxious  to  urge  the  importance  of  physiology. 
'It  would,'  he  tells  us  (p.  11),  'be  a  forgetting  of  mercies  to 
undervalue  the  results  accruing  to  education  from  the  physio- 
logical doctrine  of  the  physical  basis  of  memory.' 

"  The  physical  basis,  not  of  memory  only,  but  of  every 
purpose,  thought,  argument,  imagination,  has  been  dwelt  upon 
by  Professor  Bain  elsewhere,  e.g.  in  Fortnightly  Review,  Aug. 
and  Sept.  '68.  How  far  this  is  ascertained  scientific  truth 
and  how  far  hypothesis  I  have  not  the  means  of  judging. 
I  am  quite  prepared  to  receive  the  verdict  of  science  against 
which  a  priori  theories  of  the  nature  of  the  mind  are  im- 
potent, and  I  cannot  agree  in  the  antipathy  to  allowing  the 
influence  of  matter  on  thought.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the 
process  which  we  call  thinking  is  affected  by  our  material 
bodies.  Nobody  doubts  that  repeated  potions  of  brandy  in- 
terfere with  a  man's  clear-headedness.  Why  then  should  we 
hesitate  in  allowing  that  the  process  of  thinking  may  likewise 
affect  and  leave  traces  on  our  material  body?  And  if  we 
grant  that  thinking  of  necessity  (in  our  present  physical  con- 
dition) involves  a  physical  act,  we  have  by  no  means  granted 
that  thinking  is  a  physical  act  and  nothing  more.  But  our 
knowledge  does  not  seem  sufficiently  exact  to  justify  the 
conclusions  Mr  Bain  would  draw  from  it.  Our  power  of 
secreting  knowledge  is,  he  thinks,  limited.  Even  our  inter- 
ests  are   merely  directions  of  force,  and  our  supply  of  force 


Bains  ''Education''  531 

is  a  definite  quantity  :  we  cannot  increase  it.  Now  here  we 
have  truths  (if  truths  they  be)  which  would  have  the  most 
important  effect  on  the  work  of  the  schoolroom.  We  know 
indeed  that  our  pupils'  time  and  attention  is  a  fixed  quantity, 
and  that  the  time  and  attention  spent  on  one  subject  cannot 
be  given  to  another.  But  we  know,  or  at  least  believe,  that 
in  later  days  they  will  have  a  good  deal  of  time  and  energy 
at  their  disposal,  and  that  they  may  then  learn  anything  they 
feel  the  need  of.  But  suppose,  by  teaching  one  thing  we 
distinctly  decrease  our  pupils'  available  force  for  learning 
other  things,  we  are  doing  irreparable  injury  by  giving  the 
less  valuable  where  we  might  have  given  the  more  valuable 
knowledge.  So,  too,  with  interests.  Mr  Bain  says  that  if 
Carlyle  had  developed  an  interest  in  frogs  he  would  thereby 
have  been  prevented  from  taking  an  interest  in  something 
else  which  now  actually  interests  him.  But  maybe  this 
analogy  from  mechanical  force  is  altogether  misleading.  We 
cannot  at  present  admit  that  this  theory  is  established  a  p7-io7-i, 
and  when  we  reason  from  experience  we  do  not  seem  to  be 
led  in  the  direction  of  it.  It  may  be,  indeed,  that  we  have 
all  a  limit  to  our  powers  of  memory  and  of  interest,  but  the 
limit  is  never  attained  by  us.  In  this  case  the  fact  has  no 
practical  significance.  J.  S.  Mill  contended  that  the  average 
boy  might  learn  all  that  he  learnt.  Before  we  can  look  upon 
education  as  a  science  we  must  have  determined  whether 
learning  one  thing  hinders  us  from  learning  another,  whether 
it  weakens  our  hold  on  what  we  already  know,  how  far  the 
effects  differ  in  the  case  of  connected  and  of  desultorv 
studies.  These  are  questions  which,  in  the  present  state 
of  physiology,  cannot  be  settled  a  priori  or  by  a  page  or 
two  of  '  physiological  probabilities.' 

"The  bearings  of  Psychology  are    much    more    fully  dis- 
cussed  But    the  analysis  seems  to  me  to  fall    far  short  of 

scientific  thoroughness  and  accuracy.  One  of  the  most  im- 
portant problems  for  the  teacher  is  how  the  memory  should 


532  R.  H.  Quick 

be  treated,  and  here  science  might  be  expected  to  come  to 
our  aid  and  explain  to  us  the  various  ways  in  which  memory 
acts  and  the  conditions  best  adapted  to  its  various  activities. 
Mr  Bain  prefers  the  expression  '  retentive  faculty,'  so  as  to 
include  all  aptitudes,  and  not  simply  recalling  the  'ideas'  of 
past  impressions.  But  is  there  not  some  danger  in  such 
generalising?  When  we  consider  how  retentiveness  is  best 
cultivated,  we  must  distinguish  between  retentiveness  of  dif- 
ferent kinds.  When  the  hand  plays  with  effect  a  succession 
of  notes  on  the  piano,  it  retains  a  tendency,  though  a  very 
slight  one,  to  go  through  the  same  sequence  again.  When 
the  child  repeats  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  it  retains  a  slight 
tendency  to  fall  into  that  sequence  again.  How  strong  this 
tendency  to  run  along  established  sequences  becomes  by 
practice  may  easily  be  tested  by  anyone  who  tries  to  say 
the  alphabet,  first  forward  and  then  backward.  The  estab- 
lishment of  these  sequences  is  secured  by  hammering  away 
at  them  again  and  again.  This  the  schoolmaster  has  long 
ago  discovered,  and  Mr  Bain  refers  approvingly  to  his  prac- 
tice. (Bain,  p.  21.)  But  hitherto  the  schoolmaster  has  been 
blamed  for  thus  hammering  away  at  sequences,  and  scientific 
authorities  have  required  of  him  that  he  should  cultivate 
other  kinds  of  memory  instead  of  this  tendency  to  run  me- 
chanically along  trains.  Mr  Bain  speaks  of  the  retentive 
faculty  as  employed  in  two  ways  :  first,  in  driving  home  a 
new  fact ;  second,  in  rendering  an  impression  self-sustaining 
and  recoverable.  To  consider  the  second  heading  only,  the 
nature  of  this  impression  should  be  taken  into  account.  It 
once  happened  to  me  to  have  to  drag  a  pond  for  a  drowned 
body,  which  in  the  end  was  brought  up.  For  some  days 
afterwards  the  impression  of  that  dead  body  was  constantly 
obtruding  itself  upon  my  mind's  eye.  It  was  not  simply  re- 
coverable :  it  could  not  be  avoided.  This  action  of  the  mind 
seems  almost  different  in  kind  from  its  action  in  remem- 
bering  and    recalling   at   will,  say,  the    32nd    proposition   of 


Bains  'Education''  533 

Euclid,  book  i.  We  wish  to  recall  that  proposition.  Ar- 
bitrary association  of  ideas  immediately  suggests  the  words, 
'  The  three  angles  of  every  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right 
angles.'  But  at  first  these  are  words  only  :  our  mind  runs 
along  an  established  train  of  sounds.  By  well-formed  but 
still  arbitrary  association,  the  meaning  of  the  words  comes 
into  consciousness  without  apparent  effort.  Next  for  the 
proof.  We  have  to  think,  as  we  say.  If  we  have  often 
been  through  the  chain  of  reasoning,  our  mind  again  falls 
into  it  almost  as  mechanically  and  uncritically  as  if  the 
sequence  were  arbitrary.  But  if  the  train  is  not  thus  estab- 
lished, the  mind  helps  itself  along  by  means  of  the  reason. 
When  new  to  the  subject,  the  mind  may  simply  run  along 
a  sequence,  as,  say,  in  learning  a  Greek  verb,  or  it  may  have 
to  master  a  chain  of  reasoning,  as  in  learning  Euclid.  The 
expenditure  of  brain- force  used  must  greatly  differ  in  the  two 
cases,  but  Mr  Bain  takes  no  note  of  them.  We  can  observe 
and  take  notes,  he  says,  when  we  are  too  tired  to  trust  to 
our  memory ;  whence  he  infers  that  committing  to  memory 
is  the  action  of  the  intellect  which  makes  the  greatest  de- 
mand upon  the  brain.  But  we  can  imagine  a  man  too  tired 
to  take  in  a  new  demonstration  in  geometry,  and  yet  quite 
capable  of  remembering  an  invitation  to  dinner  without  the 
aid  of  a  notebook.  But  Mr  Bain  might  say  the  mind  vt'ould 
here  be  called  upon  for  a  difficult  feat  in  reasoning  and  a 
very  easy  one  in  remembering.  Might  not  the  student  be 
able  to  go  through  the  reasoning  and  yet  unable  to  commit 
it  to  memory?  I  reply  that  it  is  impossible  to  decide  on 
equality  of  difficulty  in  the  two  cases.  It  should  be  ob- 
served that  receiving  the  impression  does  not  admit  of  de- 
grees ;  the  mind  follows  the  reasoning,  or  it  does  not,  but 
the  rendering  the  impression  recoverable  admits  of  an  infinite 
number  of  degrees.  When  the  mind  has  received  the  im- 
pression once,  it  can  never  entirely  lose  the  effect  of  the 
impression.     It  may  be  so  affected  by  the  impression  that  it 


534  R'  f^-  Q^ii'^f^ 

is  unable  to  banish  that  impression  from  the  consciousness. 
This  is  the  extremest  instance.  It  may  be  able  to  recover 
it  at  will  without  conscious  effort.  It  may,  short  of  this,  be 
able  to  recover  it  with  different  degrees  of  effort.  It  may  lose 
the  power  for  a  time,  and  yet  regain  it ;  and,  finally,  it  may  be 
unable  to  recall  the  impression,  and  yet  some  suggestion  from 
without,  some  association,  may  bring  it  back. 

"  On  p.  29  Bain  speaks  of  the  law  of  the  mutual  exclusion 
of  great  pleasure  and  great  intellectual  exertion  which  forbids 
the  employment  of  too  much  excitement  of  any  kind  when  we 
aim  at  the  most  exacting  of  all  mental  results  —  the  forming  of 
new  adhesive  growths.  But  a  little  more  information  would 
seem  necessary  about  this 'law.'  On  what  does  it  rest?  On 
a  priori  grounds  dependent  on  the  analogy  of  physical  forces? 
or  is  it  arrived  at  by  observation?  Bain  has  been  speaking  of 
new  adhesive  growths  generally  including  '  new  bents.'  Now 
it  is  obvious  that  such  new  adhesive  growths  do  not  always 
demand  great  intellectual  exertion.  Suppose  a  boy  were  to 
hear  Herr  Joachim  play  the  violin  and  were  to  get  intense 
delight  from  it,  he  might  not  only  obtain  a  self-sustaining 
and  recoverable  impression,  but  also  a  new  bent,  and  from 
that  time  take  to  music.  These  new  adhesive  growths  would 
be  increased  as  the  pleasure  heightened ;  whereas,  according 
to  Mr  Bain,  they  should,  beyond  a  certain  point,  be  dimin- 
ished. He  makes  no  distinction  that  I  can  see  between  pleas- 
ure derived  from  the  source  of  the  impression  and  pleasure  not 
so  derived.  If  the  pleasure  has  no  tendency  to  distract  the 
attention  I  cannot  see  how  the  impression  is  weakened  by  it. 

" '  All  great  teachers,  from  Socrates  downward,  recognise 
the  necessity  of  putting  the  learner  into  a  state  of  pain  to 
begin  with.'  This  is  simply  an  appeal  to  authority.  Com- 
monplaces cannot  be  turned  into  scientific  truths  by  being 
clothed  in  obscure  phraseology.  Everyone  knows  that  he 
can  attend  easily  to  that  which  gives  him  pleasure.  This 
does  not   become  science  when  expressed  as  follows  :    '  The 


Bains  'Education^  535 

law  of  the  Will  on  its  side  of  greatest  potency  is  that  Pleasure 
sustains  the  movement  that  brings  it.' 

"  The  great  fault  of  the  book  may  be  expressed  in  one 
word,  vagueness.  Take  the  following  passage :  *  The  full 
compass,'  &c.,  p.  35.  Now  here  'committing  a  lesson  to 
memory '  is  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  a  definite  act  that  could 
be  performed  in  one  way  only.  If  we  ask  what  a  lesson  is, 
Mr  Bain  seems  to  answer,  '  A  lesson  is  just  a  lesson.'  But, 
without  attempting  any  exhaustive  classification,  we  may  ob- 
serve that  when  we  set  a  pupil  to  commit  a  lesson  to  memory 
from  the  book  we  may  direct  him  to  master  and  retain  the 
subject-matter  of  the  book,  or  to  learn  the  words  by  heart. 
If  both  are  required  the  task  will  really  be  twofold.  Now 
the  method  of  '  conning '  the  lesson  will  depend  on  the  ob- 
ject with  which  we  con  it.  In  either  case  the  method  of 
learning  which,  according  to  Bain,  '  we  '  adopt  may,  for  any- 
thing he  tells  us,  be  the  unintelligent  hammering  away,  '  the 
good  old  rule  of  the  schoolmaster,'  &c.  (p.  21),  which  should 
be  a  thing  of  the  past  if  education  is  now  a  science.  What 
is  racking  the  memory?  Is  it  excluding  from  the  conscious- 
ness all  other  ideas  in  the  hope  that  the  right  idea  will  then 
present  itself?  or  is  it  the  search  for  something  in  what  we 
do  remember  that  will  suggest  the  right  continuation  ?  or  is 
it  simply  an  attempt  to  continue  in  the  same  train  of  sounds 
which  has  previously  passed  through  the  mind?" 

Children's  Books 

"  Of  course  these  *  Contributions  of  Q.  Q.'  are  Tendenz- 
Schriften.  If  writings  for  the  young  were  not,  they  would 
probably  not  find  favour  with  the  buyers,  though  they  would 
not  be  less  pleasing  to  the  readers.  As  of  old,  Omne  tulit 
piuictum  qui  misciiit  utile  dulci ;  the  utile  to  please  the  par- 
ents, the  duke  the  children.  But  there  is  great  danger  in 
the    misconception    to  which    the    Tendenz    almost  inevitably 


536  R.  H.  Quick 

leads.  If  the  world  of  fiction  into  which  the  young  are  in- 
troduced has  no  resemblance  to  the  world  in  which  they  live, 
all  the  morals  which  the  fiction  is  intended  to  instil  will  seem 
as  unreal  as  the  world  by  which  they  are  illustrated." 


Outlines  of  the  History  and  Formation  of  the  Understanding. 
By  IV.  Ellis 

"This  is  one  of  the  books  from  which  I  fail  to  get  any 
profit.  It  was  recommended  to  me  by  Mr  Payne,  and  is 
the  work  of  an  enthusiast  for  the  improvement  of  every- 
body ;  but  I  don't  see  that  any  good  is  done  by  putting  in 
a  quasi-scientific  form  facts  which  are  familiar  to  everybody. 
Everything  is  to  be  learnt  without  one  single  painful  asso- 
ciation (p.  114),  &c.,  &c.  These  people's  instructions  for 
education  are  Hke  the  celebrated  rule  for  billiards,  'When 
in  doubt  pocket  the  red  and  cannon.' " 


INDEX 


Abbott,  E.  A.,  280,  355,  357,  358, 

360,  361 
Accuracy  for  Children,  235 
Action,  Thought  and,  423 
Advantage  of  not  being  able  to  do 

things,  435 
Ancien  Regime,  The  old  gentleman 

of  the,  509 
Alma,  Battle  of  the,  in  the  London 

Gazette,  517 
Ambition,  441 
_ American  Institutions,  514 
Anecdotes,    Characteristic,    9,    10, 

18,  19,  64,  105 
Architects  and  Teachers,  353 
Arithmetic,    230,    243,    288,    314, 

326,  327 
Arnold,    Matthew,    182,    186,  432, 

450,  470,  471 
Arnold,  T.   K.,   Reminiscences   of, 

519,  520 
Arnold,  T.  K.'s  School  books,  349 
Art  and  theory  of  Art,  413 
Ascham,   Roger,   Schoolmaster,  395 
Assistant     Masters,    Dismissal     of, 

171.  173 
Assistant  Masters,Tenure  of,i69-i  74 
Athletolatry,  38 

Bad  Teaching,  234,  236,  284,  325 

Bain,  A.,  396,  526-535 

Barnard,    President    F.   A.    P.,    on 

American  Institutions,  514 
Birmingham  Boys,  215 
Boarding  v.  Day  Schools,  164-169 
Books  that  have  helped  me,  no 
Bowen,    E.  E.,  Essay  on  a  Liberal 

Education,  395 
Bowen,  E.  E.,  Method  of  teaching, 

33.  34 
Boys,  Classification  of,  278,  279 
Boys  and  Masters,  36,  210 
Boys  and  Masters,  Relation  of,  36, 

38,  261 
BradfordjGirls'Grammar  School,  190 


Bradley,  G.  G.,  360,  518,  519 
Bradley,  G.  G.,  Method  of  training 

Masters,  350 
Brain  tiredness,  108 
'  Breaking  up'  at  Cranleigh,  17 
Bright,  John,  471 
Brighton    Grammar     School,    187, 

188,  191-194 
British  Museum,  On  an  idol  at  the, 

515 
Brooks,  Phillips,  493 
Browning,  O.,  367 
Brussels  Girls'  School,  A.,  199-202 
Brussels,  L'Ecole  Modele,  189,  204- 

207 
Bullying,  179 
Buls,  M.,  202 
Bunsen,  Ilerr    v.,    on   Reahchulen 

and  Gymnasien,  190 
Butcher,    S.    H.,   A   letter   to,   on 

Training,  380 
Butler,  Arthur,  Method  of  training 

Masters,  350 
Butler,  H.  M.,  48,  51,  61-64,  468- 

470,  509 

Calverley,  C.  S.,  an  Anecdote,  449 
Cambridge,  Compulsory  Greek  at, 

254. 

Cambridge  Conference  on  Training 
of  Teachers,  359 

Cambridge  Lectures  on  Education, 
24,  74-78,  366-369 

Cambridge  Teachers'  Examination, 
220, 386 

Cambridge  Teachers'  Training  Syn- 
dicate, 74 

Cambridge   Training    College,    384 

Carlyle,  T.,  Ill,  436,  452 

Carlyle,  T.,  on  Genius,  432 

Carter,  R.  Brudenell,  on  the  Arti- 
ficial Production  of  Stupidity, 
270 

Chad,  the  Cricketer,  522 

Chalk,  On  a  bit  of,  453 


537 


538 


Index 


Character  jurlged  by  comparison,  425 
Characteristic  Anecdotes,  9,  10,  18, 

19,  64,  105 
Chenery,  T.,  462,  463,  51 1 
Child    Nature,   297-302    {see  Dora 

and  Oliver) 
Children,  Aptitudes  of,  142 
Children's  Books,  536 
Children,    It   does  not   pay  to  de- 
ceive, 332 
Christianity,  Modern,  501 
Class  Teaching,  241,  287 
Classification  of  Boys,  278,  279 
Clearing   the    decks,    65,    91,    loi, 

109 
Code  Conference,  A,  142-144 
Code,  Education  by  the,  128-137 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  An    anecdote   of, 

455 
Collecting  Mania,  The,  443 
Communal  School  at  Brussels,  202 
Compayre,  112 
Competitive  Examinations,  Futility 

of,  2l6 
Confirmation,  55 
Consciousness  of  arrears,  46 
Conservatism  and  Liberalism,  406, 

407 
Controversy,  439 
Cookery  in  Schools,  114 
Cramming  and  Examinations,  273, 

274 
Cranleigh,  16,  21,  29 
Cranleigh,  'Breaking  up'  at,  17 
Cribs,  46 

Criticisms  of  books,  524-536 
Criticism  Lesson,  A,  384 
Cyclopaedia    of   Education,    Kiddle 

and  Shem's,  524 

Daniel,  Canon,  367 

Death  and  personal  identity,  502 

Debate  in  the  House  of  Commons 

on  Education  Estimates,  127,  139 

-141;    on  Assistant  Masters,  174 
Demogeot,     Report      on      English 

Schools,  165 
De  Quincey,  A  Sermon   on   a  text 

from,  381-384 
Desultoriness,  277 
Dickens,  Forster's  Life  of,  450 


Didactic  Teaching,  An  apology  for, 

265 

Difficulties,  A  Lecture  on,  484 

Diocesan  Inspector,  A,  156 

Disraeli's  Plagiarisms,  455 

Distinction  due  to  strong  interests, 
440 

Dixon,  Mr  G.,  Objections  to  a 
Chair  of  Education  in  the  Mason 
College,  373 

Dora,  297;  taking  notice,  303; 
hearing  comes  first,  303;  starting 
at  the  light,  303;  laughing  and 
crying,  304;  exercise,  304;  learn- 
ing to  play,  304;  delight  in  sound 
and  touch,  305;  sympathy,  305; 
conscience,  growth  of,  305 ;  walk- 
ing alone,  306;  sight  becomes 
the  leading  sense,  306;  talking, 
306;  disobedience,  307,  316;  pic- 
tures, 308;  jokes,  308,  319,  320; 
development  of  the  will,  308; 
memory  from  association,  310; 
dramatic  stage,  311;  dreaming, 
312;  stage  of  inquiry,  312;  dis- 
tinguishing tunes,  313;  sense  of 
her  own  dignity,  314;  learnmg  to 
count,  314,  326,  327,  345;  recog- 
nising wild-flowers  by  their  names, 
315;  self-assertion,  316;  resent- 
ment at  being  set  right,  317; 
asking  questions,  317,  323;  ob- 
ser\'ation,  318,  322;  poetry, 
memory  and  feeling  for,  318,  331, 
1)Z~'    3375     beauties    of    nature, 

318,  319;  coining  words,  320 ; 
collision  of  wills,  320;  hide  and 
seek,  321 ;  pride  in  wrong-doing, 
321;  memory,  322,  344;  reading 
lessons,  324,  325,  329,  339,  341; 
metaphors,  324 ;   forms  of  temper, 

319,  326,  331,  336,  341,  346; 
continuous  attention  distasteful, 
328;  powers  of  narrative,  328; 
confusion  of  words,  328;  attempts 
at  writing  and  drawing,  329 ;  affec- 
tion for  Oliver,  329,  331;  visual- 
isation, 330 ;  knowing  poetry  too 
well,  332;  writing  lessons,  333; 
unexpected  difiiculties,  334;  fail- 
ure of  the  mind  to  act,  334,  335; 


Index 


539 


pleasure  in  listening  to  poetry, 
336;  arithmetic,  337,  338,  344, 
347;  results  by  the  code,  338; 
restlessness,  330,  338,  340; 
naughtiness,  314,  339,  346; 
character,  difference  from  Oliver, 
330;  independence,  342;  geog- 
raphy, 343;  printing,  336,  344; 
spelling,  345 ;  phenomena,  philo- 
sophical difficulty  about,  347 

Drawing  Lesson,  A,  155 

Dutch  Schoolboy,  A,  518 

Eaves-dropping,  510 
Ecole  Modele,  Brussels,  198,  204-207 
Ecole  Normale,  Brussels,  203 
Editors,  Experience  of,  521 
Education,  A  proposed  Chair  of,  in 

Mason  College,  Birmingham,  373- 

376  . 
Education,  The  cost  of,  387 
Education,  Elementary,  worked  by 

Machinery,  152 
Education  Estimates,  127,  139-141 
Education,   History   of,   Cambridge 

lectures  on,  24,  74-78,  366-369 
Education,  The  Historical  theory  of, 

378 
Education,  Rational,  Grant  Duff  on, 

249-252 
Education,     Religious,     in     Public 

Schools,  13,  14,   15 
Education  as  a  Science,  A.  Bain's, 

526-535 
Education,  Theory  of,  366-369 
Educational  Lecturesin  Yorkshire,  82 
Edncatio)ial  Refortners,  10,  24-28, 

104 
Educational  Reformers,  American 

appreciation  of,  27 
Educatiotial  Reformers,  French  ap- 
preciation of,  28 
Educational  Writers,  Study  of,  262 
Ellis,  Robinson,  an  anecdote  of,  510 
Ellis,  W.,    Outlines  of  the   History 
and   Formation    of  the     Under- 
standing,  536 
Emerson's  Essay  on  Education,  340 
Emulation,  240 
Endowments,  50 
Energy  and  Genius,  432 


English,     Learning     through     the 

Classics,  259 
Entrance  Scholarships,  176-178 
Essay,  A  Harrow  Boy's,  505 
Essays  in  Real-Schulen,  183 
Eton,  184,  185 
Eve,  H.  W.,  278 
"  Evil     is     wrought     by    want     of 

thought,"  242 
Examination,  Cambridge  Teachers', 

220,  221 
Examination    Paper   in  Shakspere, 

Comments  on,  224 
Examinations,  216-226 
Examinations  and  Cramming,  273, 

274 
Examinations,  I.  C.  S.,  249 
Examinations,  Theory  of,  216 
Exafuitter,  The  Comprehensive,  223 
Excellence,  Low  standard  of,  385 
Exercises,  52,  53,  278 
Exercises,  Correction  of,  278 
Experience,  Scientific  record  of,  263 
Experience,  varied,  Necessity  of,  275 
Expression  affects  thought,  495 
Externals,  Importance  of,  517 

Familiarity,  Terrible,  414 
Fearon,  D.,  277 
Fitch,  Sir  J.,  356,  367,  399 
Fluellen's  Leek,  283 
Forms,  Use  of  fixed,  442 
French  Book,  Arnold's  First,  389 
French,  A  boy's  mistakes  in,  507 
French  Conferences,  486,  487 
French    Lessons    at    Neuilly,    390, 

391,  408  ^ 
French  Lycees,  186 
French  Mots,  454 
French    views   of    Public    Schools, 

165,  166 

Genius,  Energy  and,  432 
Gentleness,  297 

Geography,  Teaching  of,  15,  288 
German  Each-literalur,  526 
Germany,  Masters  in,  181-183 
German  Wedding  Tour,  A,  5 10 
Girls'  Schools,  190,  283 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  An  anecdote  of, 
5" 


540 


Index 


Globi,    Article    in,    'The    Fisher's 

Cunning,'  385 
Goodwin,  Harvey,  as  a  preacher,  483 
Governing     Bodies     of     Grammar 

Schools,  98 
Grammar,  A  Grammarian's,  507 
Grammar  Schools,  Governing  Bodies 

of,  98 
Greek,  Compulsory,  at  Cambridge, 

254 
Grey,  Mrs  W.,  Students   may   not 

earn  money,  359 
Guildford,  80 
Guildford,  Reminiscences  of,  by  an 

old  pupil,  82-89 

Hallam,  G.  H.,  116-118 
Hallam,  as  an  historian,  451 
Hamerton,  P.  H.,  The  Intellectual 

Life,  425 
Hamilton,  Lord  G.,  on  Mr   Rath- 
bone's    Motion    on    Training    of 
.H.M.I.,  387 
Hamiltonian  system,  393,  395,  397 
Hanna,  Dr,  508 
"  Harassing  Legislation,"  35 
Hard  Work,  411,  509 
Harris,  Dr  W,  T.,  on   Education, 

512,513 
Harrison,  Frederic,  in   Fortnightly 

Review,  on    changed    conditions 

of  life,  371 
Harrow,  29-59,  I16-I18 
Harrow,  A  Day's  Work  at,  41 
Harrow  Sermons,  Dr  Butler's,  477 
Harrow  Stories,  38 
Harrow  System,  The,  32 
Headaches,  44,  45 
Headmasters  and  Assistants,  Rela- 
tions of,  18 
Headmasters  and  Assistants,  Tenure 

of,  173 
Headmasters'    Committee    meeting 

with    Sir    J.    K.    Shuttleworth's 

Committee,  351 
Headmasters,  The  two  requisites  in, 

179 
Headmastership,  Proposed,  78 
Herbart,  275 
History   of   Education,    Cambridge 

Lectures  on,  24,  74-78 


Hogarth,  459 
Hurstpierpoint,  15,  16,  29 
Hymns,  Effect  of,  4 

Impressions,  The  fixity  of  some,  402 
Impressionist  Teaching,  33 
Inaccuracy  and  Ignorance,  General, 

408 
Individuals  and  Classes,  437,  438 
Inductive  Method,  The,  395 
Inexperienced,  Cockiness  of  the,  377 
Informative  subjects,  Art  of  teach- 
ing. 343 
Inspectorships,  G.  P,  D.  S.  Co.,  73 
Intellectual  Freshness,  290 
Intellectual  Impressions,  Early,  257 
Interest,  267,  284,  413,  415,  416 
Interest  in  one's  own  notions,  430 
Investigation,  Method  of,  341 

Jacotot,  School  of  Language  Teach- 
ing. 393.  394 
Jesuit  plan  in  English  Schools,  A,  520 
Jesuit  Schools,  207-209,  293 
Jokes,  The  stage  for,  in  a  lecture, 

488,  489 
Johnson,  Dr,  opinion  of  Education, 
373 

Kingsley,  Charles,  on  the  poetry  of 

common  things,  407 
Kirkby  Lonsdale,  97 
Knocking  into  shape,  159 
Knowledge,  Capitalising,  396 
Knowledge  clusters  about  a  name, 

404 
Knowledge,  Miscellaneous,  6 

Lake's  Preparatory  School,  298 
Lancaster  Grammar  School,  11 
Language,  388-397 
Language   Teaching,  E.  E.  Bowen 

and  Ascham  on,  395 
Language  Teaching,  Expression  and 

Impression  in,  392 
Language  Teaching,  Two   Schools 

of,  393 
Lapsus  Linguae,  A,  511 
Latin,  Elementary  Teaching  of,  231 
Latin  in  Middle  Class  Schools,  247 
Latin  Primer, The  Pubhc  School,  5 25 


Index 


541 


Lawgivers  should  have  good  mem- 
ories, 213 
I-earning,  Boys'  indifference  to,  37 
Learning  and  knowing,  507 
Lectures,    Educational,    in     York- 
shire, 82 
Lectures,    Extempore     or    written, 

479,  485,  486,  488,  489 
Lectures  on  the  history  of  Educa- 
tion at  Cambridge,  24,  74-78 
Lectures,  Taking  notes  during,  479 
Lecture,  The  most  successful,  76 
Leisure,  68,  98 
Lessing,  419 

Life,  How  to  lengthen,  507 
Life  needs  prearrangement,  409 
Life,  The  future,  503 
Life,  Waste  of,  430 
Literature  in  Primary  Schools,  Arti- 
cle on,  58 
Literary  Style,  451,  452 
Living,  Art  of,  420,  422,  424 
Living  on  a  low  level,  107,  410 
Llewelyn  Davies,  J.,  8,  9,  115,  116, 

461 
Locke's  Thoughts  concerning  Edu- 
cation, 90,  91,  293 
London,  Picturesqueness  of,  407 
Longley,   Archbishop,  A    Reminis- 
cence of,  520 
Lowe,  R.  (Lord  Sherbrooke),  130, 

I37>  157 
Lubbock,  Sir  J.,  on  Education,  141 
Lyon  Foundation,  49 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  401,  452,  456,  457 
MacCarthy,  Letter  to,  144-146,  371, 

372 
Macmillan,  Memoir  of  Daniel,  462 
Manner  in  lecturing,  483 
Manner,    A     Schoolmaster's,    211, 

Maria  Grey  Training  School,  384 

Masters,  Different  types  of,  264 

Masters'  Meeting,  A,  53 

Masterships:  Lancaster  Grammar 
School,  II;  Guildford  Grammar 
School,  II;  Ilurstpierpoint,  15, 
16;  Surrey  County  School,  Cran- 
leigh,  16,  20-24;    Harrow,  29-59 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  iii,  495 


Meiklejohn,  Prof.,  School  of  Lan- 
guage Teaching,  393 

Memory,  398-405,  506 

Memory,  Ambiguity  of  the  word,  398 

Memory  and  Intelligence,  404 

Memory  and  Vision,  3 

Memory,  Children's,  Tenacity  of,  344 

Memory,  Fitch's  tract  on,  399 

Memory,  Freaks  of,  399,  400,  403, 
404 

Memory  in  general  not  active,  401 

Memory,  Interest  alone  will  not  fix 
anything  in  the,  400 

Memory,  vain  repetitions,  398 

Middle  Class  Education,  Mark  Pat- 
tison  on,  252 

Mill,  J.  S.,  289 

Millais,  J.,  on  looking  at  his  own 
works,  445 

Milton  on  Education,  340 

Miscellaneous  Knowledge,  6 

Monitorial  System,  51 

Moral  Gravitation,  Law  of,  428    . 

Multiplicity  of  studies,  256 

Mundella's,  Mr,  New  Code,  81,  I40 

National  Education,  156 
Natural  Science  Teaching,  292 
Nature  and  Nurture,  428,  429 
Nature  and  Providence,  501 
Nearing  the  Station,  100 
Neatness,  54 

Neglecting,  the  Art  of,  69 
Newman,  J.  H.,  112,  434 
Newspapers,   Unscrupulousness   of, 

459 
New  York  School  Journal,  453 

Ohne  Liebe  Kein  Lehren,  259 
Old  Testament,  Children  in,  298 
Oliver,  297,  303;  -interest  in  his 
own  movements,  322;  attempts 
at  play  and  speech,  322;  gener- 
ous instincts,  322;  restless  activ- 
ity, 323,  325;  imitation,  323; 
affection  for  Dora,  329,  331; 
temper,  331,  336;  humming  a 
tune  before  learning  to  talk,  332; 
confidence  begets  obedience,  l^y, 
efforts  to  talk,  333;  character, 
difference  from  Dora,  330;    first 


542 


Index 


lessons,  345 ;  writing,  345 ;  count- 
ing, 345;   arithmetic,  347 
Originality  in  a  writer,  454 

Parmentier,  M.  J.,  28,  74,  104 
Pascal's  Provinciales,  404 
Patience,  244,  292,  338,  341 
Pattison,    Mark,  on    Middle    Class 

Education,  252 
Payment  by  results,  146 
Payne,  Joseph,  270,  273 
Payne,  W.   H.,  on    difference    be- 
tween children  and  grown  peo- 
ple, 344 
Personal  identity  and  death,  502 
Pessimism  in  practical  atheism,  498 
Pestalozzi,  146,  271,  281 
Platitudes,  491 
Plumptre,  Dean,  489-491 
Practice,  289,  291 
Practice,  Theory  v.,  411,  412 
Practising  Schools,  387 
Pragmatical  Pupil,  A,  212 
Preachers,  A  contrast  in,  489-491 
Preaching  and  Lecturing,  472-487 
Preaching  blunts  feeling,  487 
Preaching,     Effects      of,     on      the 

Preacher,  493 
Preceptors,  College  of,  354,  386 
Preceptors,    College   of.    Teachers' 

Examination  Papers,  354 
Precocious  boy,  A,  298 
Prendergast's    Method,    388,    393, 

394,  397 
Preparation    and    Class   Teaching, 

158,  159 

Preparatory  Schools,  237,  238 

Preparatory  Schools  at  Orine  Square, 
67;    at  Guildford,  80 

Primary  Schools,  Waste  of  time  in, 
128 

Private  Schools,  196-198 

Psychology  and  Training  of  Teach- 
ers, 376,  377 

Public  opinion  a  hindrance  to  Edu- 
cation, 256 

Public  School  Education,  Defects 
of,  175 

Public  Schools,  158 

Punishments,  160-163,  210,  229 


Quarterly  Review,  on  Tennyson,  464 
Quarterly   A'eviezv,    '  Our    Schools 

and  Schoolmasters,'  524 
Quick:  anecdotes  of,  9,  10,  18,  19; 
books  that  have  helped  me,  IIO; 
Cambridge  Lectures  on  History 
of  Education,  24,  74-78;  child- 
hood, 2-6;  clearing  the  decks, 
65,  91,  loi,  109;  College,  7-8; 
Clerical  Work,  8,  li,  115,  116; 
Coufessio  Fidei,  499,  500;  editing 
Locke's  Thoughts  Concerning 
Education,  90,  91 ;  Educational 
Council  of  Yorkshire,  lectures 
for,  82;  Educational  Refor7ners, 
10,  24-28,  104;  Germany,  visit 
to,  1 80;  Guildford,  80;  Guild- 
ford Workhouse,  preaching  at, 
492;  Harrow,  life  at,  29-59, 
I16-I18;  inspectorship,  G.P.D.S. 
Co.,  73;  last  days,  124-126; 
Lecture,  The  most  successful,  76; 
Literature  in  Primary  Schools, 
article  on,  58;  marriage,  66; 
Nearing  the  Station,  100;  New 
Year,  Thoughts  on  the,  70;  note- 
books, the,  108;  ordination,  li; 
Orme  Square,  67;  parents,  i; 
Pourparlers  for  a  Headmaster- 
ship,  78;  Recollections  of,  by  Dr 
H.  M.  Butler,  61-64;  Recollec- 
tions of,  by  John  Russell,  20-24; 
Redhill,  Life  at,  103,  1 18-123; 
school-days,  4,  5 ;  Sedbergh,  94  ; 
Sedbergh,  resignation  of,  102; 
sensitiveness,  114;  style,  estimate 
of  his  own,  58,  59 

R's,  the  three,  289 

Radonvilliers,  De  la  Maniere  d''ap- 
prendre  les  langues,  397 

Rathbone,  Mr,  On  Training  of 
H.M.  Inspectors,  387 

Ratich,  School  of  Language  Teach- 
ing. 393.  394 

Reading,  450-471  . 

Reading  backwards.  Teaching,  331 

Reading  in  Elementary  Schools, 
137-139,  147,  152 

Realschulen  and  Gymnasien,  Herr 
V.  Bunsen,  on,  190 


Index 


543 


Recollections  of  Childhood,  2-6 

Kedhill,  103,  105,  1 18-123 

Reforms,  Educational,  Generally 
Improvised  expedients,  417 

Reforms,  Why  they  are  rare  and 
tardy,  446 

Reformers,  Educational,   lO,  24-28 

Relation  of  boys  and  Masters,  36,  38 

Relations  of  Headmasters  and  As- 
sistants, 18 

Religious  Beliefs,  498-504 

Religious  Education  in  Public 
Schools,  13,  14,  15 

Religious  Teaching  in  Elementary 
Schools,  149-151 

Renan,  Ernest,  503 

Repetition,  238,  285,  286 

Restlessness,  427 

Ridding,  Dr,  On  Cambridge  Ex- 
amination in  Theory  of  Education, 
368,  369,  370,  439 

Ridding,  Dr,  On  Entrance  Scholar- 
ships, 178 

Rizpah,  Tennyson's,  460 

Roland  for  an  Oliver,  A,  214 

Rollin's  Method,  349 

Rote,  Learning  by,  280 

Roundell,  Mr.  C.  S.,  On  Practice 
and  Theory,  386 

Rousseau,  295,  342,  344,  482,  513 

Routine,  40,  408 

Ruskin,  289,  294,  401,  465,  466,  467 

Russell,  John,  Recollections  of  Mr 
Quick,  20-24 

St  Mary's  School,  Brighton,  128-137 
School    Endowments,   Employment 

of,  50 
School  list,  57 

Schoolmaster's  Manner,  A,  211,  213 
Schools,  Practising,  387 
School  Systems,  The  weakness  of, 

352 
School,  The  world  of,  39 
School  Wrinkles,  228,  233 
Science  and  Art  in  Education,  280, 

281 
Science  not  for  Children,  239 
Scripture  Lessons,  43 
Secondary     Masters,    A     Training 

College  for,  272 


Secondary  Teachers,Training  of,  350 
Sedbergh,  94-103 

Sedbergh  Grammar  School,  194, 195 
Seeley,    J.  R.,    124-126,   223,   269, 

402,  457,  458,  484,  485,  515 
Self-absorption,  431 
Self-castigation,  18 
Self-improvement,  262 
Self  Interest,  Fallacy  of,  418 
Sensitiveness,  114 
Sermons,    472,  478,  481-484,  487, 

489-493,  495,  496 
Sermon  on  a  Text  trom  De  Quincey, 

381-383 
Set  books.  An  Examination  paper 

in,  218 
Sharpe,  T.  W,,  360 
Shuttleworth,  Sir  J.  Kay,  272,  330, 

351 
Sidgwick,  Henry,  On  Training,  360, 

518 

Simon,  Jules,  505 

'  Skewing  '  boys,  260 

Slough,  Mr  Hawtrey's  School  at,  189 

Smollett,  459 

Social  Science  Congress  and  Speak- 
ing, 478 

Sonnenschein,  School  of  Language 
Teaching,  393 

Speaking,  The  art  of,  493,  494 

Spectator,  459,  521 

Spectator,  A  letter  to  the,  on  Assist- 
ant Masters,  169-171 

Spectator,  'A  letter  to  Mr  Hutton,  on 
Teachers'  Examinations,  361,  362 

Spectator,  On  taking  a  boy's  word, 
211 

Spectator,  On  Tedium,  442 

Spencer,  Herbert,  497,  528 

Spencer,  Lord,  81,  137,  445 

Stephen,  Sir  James,  Lectures  on 
History,  227 

Storr,  F.,  1 18-123 

Stupidity,  R.  Brudenell  Carter  on, 
270 

Style,  Estimate  of  his  own,  58,  59 

Style,  Literary,   451,  452,  457,  458 

Subjective  feelings.  Memory  of,  403 

Sully,  J.,  Outlines  of  Psychology, 
386 

Superannuation  of  Masters,  176 


544 


Index 


Surrey  County  School,  i6,  21 
Swift,  453,  470 
Sympathetic  Teaching,  269 
System,  Marcel  or  Arnold,  395 

Talking  in  School,  295 
Teach,  What  to,  247 
Teachers,  Books  for,  282 
Teachers,  Examination  of,  353,361, 

Teachers'    Examination,    Questions 

for,  363 
Teachers'  Mistakes,   334,  340,  342, 

343 
Teachers,  Products  of  untrained,  379 
Teachers'  Training  Syndicate,  Cam- 
bridge, 74 
Teachers  unimprovable,  56 
Teachers,  Waste  of  power  through 

ignorance  in,  352, 353 
Teaching,  Bad,  234,  236,  284 
Teaching,  Didactic,  265 
Teaching,  Natural  Science,  292 
Teaching  of  Geography,  15 
Teaching,  Sympathetic,  269 
Teaching  too  high.  Danger  of,  230 
Tedium,  442 

Temple  (Archbishop),  482,  509 
Temple   (Archbishop),   Method   of 

Training  Masters,  350 
Tennyson,  A.,  452,  460,  464,  519 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  470 
Theory,  418 
Theory    of    Education,  The,    366- 

369,  370 
Theory  v.  Practice,  411,  412 
Theory,  when  important,  418 
Thinking,  423 

Thoughts  on  the  New  Year,  70 
Thoughts  on  Teaching,  70-73,  286, 

2S7,  392 
Thought  and  action,  423 
Thring,  on  Machinery,  267 
Tidying,  Reflections  on,  446 
Time  and  energ>',  106,  114 
Tradition,  The  claims  of,  in    Edu- 
cation, 379 
Training,  A  letter  to  S.  H.  Butcher, 
on,  380 


Training  Colleges,  272,  350 
Training  of  Teachers,  349-387.  355» 

371.380,381 
Training   of  Teachers,   A   London 

U.  U.  Debate,  355 
Training   of   Teachers,   Cambridge 

Conference  on,  359 
Training,  The  Seamy  Side  of,  384 
Translation,  460 
Trench,  On  words,  508 
Truth,  433,  434,  436 
Truth  and  feeling,  496 
Truth,  Lessing  and,  419 
Tunnel,  Mostly  in  the,  517 
Tutorial  System  at  Harrow,  48 
Types  of  Masters,  Different,  264 

U.  U.'s,  The  London,  217,  278,  279 
Unkindness,  297 

Variety,  Value  of,  in  teaching,  337 
Vaughan,  Dr,  51 
Vision  and  Memory,  3 

Walker,  F.  W.,  279,  280,  356-359 

Ward,  James,  367,  526 

Ward,  W.  G.,  Ideals  of  a  Christian 

Church,  498 
Westminster  Abbey,  2 
W^e>Tnouth,  Dr  R.  F.,  280 
TF/^jl^Importance  of,  in  learning,  291 
Will,  Interest  and  the,  415,  416 
Woodard,  the  Rev.  N.,  78,  79 
Word  and   S}inbol  Connection  of, 

in  reading,  331 
Word  V.  Thing,  404. 
Words,  The  power  of,  248,  258,481 
W^ords  without   Ideas,  Memory  of, 

506 
Wordsworth,  Dr,  51 
Wordsworth,  W.,  504,  521,  527 
Work  and  Leisure,  98 
Work  for  young  boys,  228,  240 
W^orkers,  Good,  may  be  dumb  dogs, 

413 
Workhouse  Children,  147,  153 

Young,   The,   should    they   choose 
their  way,  340 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
THE  CHILD 


BY 


NATHAN   OPPENHEIM 

Attending  Physician  to  the   Children's  Department  of 
Mt.  Sinai  Hospital  Dispensary 


i2mo.     Cloth.     $1.25,  nei 


Journal  of  Education 


"This  is  an  exceedingly  helpful  book.  It  is  a  book  with 
a  mission  for  mankind.  The  author  has  a  great  purpose, 
and  his  treatment  is  both  scholarly  and  original." 

Child  Study  Monthly 

"  This  is  one  of  the  best  child-study  books  that  has  ever 
appeared.  It  deals  with  facts  that  come  from  the  closest 
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THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,    NEW   YORK 


A   COURSE   OF   LECTURES 

ON   THE 

GROWTH  AND  MEANS  OF  TRAINING 

THE 

MENTAL   FACULTY. 

DELIVERED    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF   CAMBRIDGE. 


FRANCIS   WARNER,  M.D.   (Lond.), 
F.R.C.P.,  F.R.C.S.  (Eng.), 

Physician  to  the  London  Hospital ;   Lecturer  on  Therapeutics  and  on  Botany  at  the 

London  Hospital  College  ;  Formerly  Hunter ian  Professor  of  Anatomy 

and  Physiology  in  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons  of  England. 


i2mo.     Cloth.     Price,  90  cents,  net. 


NOTICES. 

"  It  is  original,  thorougli,  systematic,  and  wonderfully  suggestive. 
Every  superintendent  should  study  this  book.  Few  works  have 
appeared  lately  which  treat  the  subject  under  consideration  with 
such  originality,  vigor,  or  good  sen.se."  —  Education. 

"  A  valuable  little  treatise  on  the  physiological  signs  of  mental 
life  in  children,  and  on  the  right  w'ay  to  observe  these  signs  and 
classify  pupils  accordingly.  .  .  .  The  book  has  great  originality, 
and  though  somewhat  clumsily  put  together,  it  should  be  very  help- 
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and  we  strongly  commend  them  to  our  readers." —  Canada  Educa- 
tional Journal. 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 

66   FIFTH    AVENUE.    NEW  YORK. 


A/lU- 


0x14/ 


UCLA-Young   Research   Library 

LB775   .Q4 


L  009  584  621    8 


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